Boating Safety Course may offer insurance discount

[T&M2619]

This may have been shared before, but being a new boat owner thought I would share for new boat owners.

After ordering our boat my husband and I both took an online Boating Safety Course.  By doing so our insurance company gave us a small discount!  You just have to provide a copy of your certificate you receive after completing the course.  Taking a safety course was not a requirement for our ages but something we wanted to do to learn safety & water navigation rules.  Didn't know about the discount until we were getting with our insurance agent for coverage!  

~ Trish ~

 

[BigKahuna]

Yes..... we get a premium discount w/BoatUS when we advised them that we had taken the boating course as a Virginia resident.....

Who do you have your boat insurance with?!?

 

[T&M2619]

Yes..... we get a premium discount w/BoatUS when we advised them that we had taken the boating course as a Virginia resident.....

Who do you have your boat insurance with?!?

Ours is with our bank's insurance division where we have our home mortgage.  Got the best rates from them for insurance.  

 

[BigKahuna]

Ours is with our bank's insurance division where we have our home mortgage.  Got the best rates from them for insurance.

Did you see what BoatUS had to offer?!? Reason being.......We have had the Erie Insurance group for about 30 yrs. now........3 houses all the cars over the years, boats, jet skis, motorcycles, you get the picture. When we moved to North Carolina we looked around to see what else was available out there. We ended up keeping everything w/Erie except our Bennington. We ended up paying the same amount but the coverage and deductible was so much better......plus it included towing AND environmental spill coverage of $854000. Erie didn't have the last two.....

 

[SEMPERFI8387]

Yeah, the spill coverage is why many go with BoatUS. It does not take much of a spill to eat up $854,000.

Figure hazmat teams and equipment ....... hazmat mats, booms, sponges, boats, people, etc.......

Check your coverage closely and read the fine print.

 

[kaydano]

Actually, it DOES take a rather large spill to eat up the whole $854,000. 

Spinzone found a report a while back (the thread is posted here on this forum) with a bunch of EPA spill cases that contained the amounts of oil spilled and the clean up costs.  From what I read, my boat has NO WHERE near the amount of gas and oil that would reach the $854k clean up.  You'd have to be a fairly large commercial fishing boat (think "Deadliest Catch" TV show) to have the hundreds of gallons of gas and oil that this would take. 

Shortly after that revelation, I switched to Progressive.  I now pay 1/3rd what I did with BoatUS.  I forget what my spill coverage is now, but I think it's $500k.  Which is still FAR more than what the EPA report was showing for boats carrying the amount of gas/oil that I carry.

I called BoatUS and talked to them about this before I switched to Progressive.  I told them about the EPA report and the numbers.  They were unable to convince me to stay with them.  Their coverage covers my piddly little pontoon boat the same as a 120 foot crab boat.  So, I switched. 

That said, we had Allstate for house and auto, and I originally checked with them and their spill coverage was just $100.  Yep, $100.  Not $100k.  Just $100.  So, you really have to ask your agent about this. 

As I recall, 4 quarts of oil and 20 gallons of gas was well under $100k to clean up.  I think even $30k was on the high end...

Someone can dig up the old thread.  All the numbers are there.

 

[kaydano]

I found the old thread. I'm copying my old post here for convenience.

Thanks for posting that last link. Here's what I got out of it...

There were 8 spill examples given. 7 were spills of 1, 3, 8, 60, 84, and 126 gallons. Every one of those were under $50k to clean up in total cost. The 8th incident cost $125k to clean up, but it was a 500 gallon spill.

That tells me BoatUS's spill coverage of $854k is just for the big boats they insure, and is overkill for my little pontoon boat that holds a max of 25 gallons of gas and oil.

You guys can reach your own conclusions, but the numbers tell me I've been overly paranoid about spill coverage.

This levels the playing field between BoatUS and the other insurers (for small boats).

 

[BigKahuna]

I didn't have ANY spill coverage with Erie. The premium was $209 and had them for about 20 yrs. with 2 different boats. BoatUS's premium is $219 w/a better deductible, towing and spill coverage.........No brainer to switch.

 

[T&M2619]

Thanks everyone for your great advice & info about the coverage!  Going to make sure how much spill coverage we have!



~ Trish

 

[T&M2619]

Ok...think we're good!  We have $500,000 spill coverage & we have towing.  Ours is with Travelers.

Thanks!