Boat Insurance Question

[jkust]

My cabin unfortunately got hit by a straight line winds storm last July. Lot's of destruction including my boat lift and dock. It apparently made for a good news story as my property was used as the lead story in the local news which was a bad way to find out about it. My sig boat was on the lift when it toppled over and received a good bit of damage dollar-wise. It ended up being light gel coat damage to the cap because the whole of the wrap-around windshield held the weight of most of the boat lift off the boat. That meant that the whole wrap around windshield took the brunt and was damaged. The boat sat until the end of summer on the trailer awaiting the adjuster to go and see it but ultimately he told me to bring it back into town the end of the season to one particular repair shop so he could adjust it there. Only two shops in the state can handle this type of repair or so I am told. As it turns out, you don't just order a whole new windshield system like a car given my boat stopped being produced for model year 2007 or 8. (I think most of us know windshields are not easy to come by) Instead, the repair shop needs to have the OEM, Taylormade, make a one off replacement unit and then do the apparently difficult work of removing the old one and installing the new one. It is built into the fiberglass all around not just bolted on. It would seem then that there is no ETA for the windshield to be ready or even manufactured by Taylormade much less have the repair work done. At this rate I'm not at all confident the boat will be up and running by May when the ice goes off the lake. The repair shop knows nothing and provides one word answers to questions. My question then is, at what point does the wait for a repair or repair parts become unreasonable and insurance just total the boat out? The damage estimate was about 45% of the agreed value of the boat and trailer combo from way back when I bought the boat. That I suppose means that minus the trailer, the repair would be likely over 50% or more of the policy agreed value which is overvalued as it is this many years old. I naively presumed this would be done by now and the boat would be in its winter storage facility. If the light gelcoat damage was repaired, a person would have a hard time noticing the very slight bend in the side windows presuming the windshield system hasn't been removed already. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

 

[alldodge]

Looks like 25 or so folks looked at your post and no responses. Never ran into the issue of long repair times or heard about them until now. Doesn't matter what insurance company you have but might I suggest calling someone like Boat US. Call them and ask for a quote and then also get into what they would do if something like this would happen again. You probably could get by without even mentioning the current issue, just find out what there comments are.

After that call your state insurance commissioner and let them know what your running into. The Ins Com is there to take reports of issues with claims

 

[keith2k455]

Yes, you will have a state insurance commissioner or a state insurance board. Their purpose is to help these situations. In Illinois its the Illinois Board of Insurance, I believe. If all else fails, your State Attorney General can provide assistance. Needless to say, I assume you are cancelling all policies with this company. Can you post who you have?

 

[64osby]

Ask your adjuster if the insurance company will be providing a suitable replacement boat until they repair your boat, if the repair is not complete by May 1st.

See if your policy has any language that relates to that.

 

[Limited-Time]

Three words......Boat Salvage Yard. I recently had an insurance claim on an out of production PWC, A 03' Honda Aqua Trax. None of the required replacement parts were available through the OEM or any of their outlets. Consequently they were sourced this way.

 

[bruceb58]

This the same boat that crashed into the house because you thought the break away lever was a parking brake? Whatever happened to the insurance claim that time?

 

[jkust]

This the same boat that crashed into the house because you thought the break away lever was a parking brake? Whatever happened to the insurance claim that time?

Luckily the angle the boat hit the cabin, it only damaged the trailer. I just pounded back the bent tail light holder that doubles as a step and put a new tail light assembly on. It took a day to fix all of the damage to the cabin since when the boat tore through the corner siding piece it bent all of those short siding pieces back and cracked them. No damage to the boat at all and no insurance claims made. You can see in the pic below that had the lower unit not been left fully tilted, there would have been some expensive damage to it. I chalked this one up as a really stupid learning experience and a bit of bad luck.
The top pic shows the boat lift collapsed on top of the boat from the storm. I had just bought the lift three weeks prior and it cost almost a thousand dollars just to have it installed and delivered aside from the price to purchase. Insurance paid for a replacement as well as a new dock among other damaged items. The lift is a Floe VSD 5000 24 volt system with remote control operation plus remote control lighting and solar charging. I was one of only two on the lake to have the high wind kit which did no good. Now I see the high wind kits all over the lake since so many at minimum lost their canopy.