Boat insurance
The people who write your cover also settle your claim
NAMMERT is an underwriting agent, not a broker who passes you on. We assess the risk, sign the policy ourselves and settle claims in the same building. For a boat kept abroad that is the difference between an answer today and a file that travels.
Cover by boat type
Ten types where the wording differs enough to deserve a page of its own.
Six clauses worth checking
Check them in any quote you receive, not only in ours. They are the lines that decide a claim.
Agreed value, not market value
The sum we agree in writing is what gets paid on a total loss. No argument about what a fifteen-year-old boat is worth on the day it sinks.
Gross negligence waived
Up to 25 % of the sum insured from Basis-Plus and 50 % in Premium; as a percentage, not a fixed cap in euros. It is the commonest reason payments get cut.
Salvage paid on top
Salvage and wreck removal come in addition to the settlement, not deducted from it. Deducted, there would be nothing left to repair with.
No hurricane exclusion
No blocked season, no obligation to move the boat, no storm excess. Every provider in our own comparison has one; we do not.
Ashore and in winter storage
Lifting, launching, craning and the months on the hard are included in partial and full hull cover, in a foreign yard too.
Trailer and tender at no extra premium
Uncoupled and while manoeuvring as well. The tender is included, even with its own outboard.
Three tariffs
Your own policy wording governs. Premium tax follows your country of residence.
The question we are asked most
Can a German insurer cover my boat abroad?
Within the EU and the EEA, yes; insurance is a service that crosses borders under the freedom to provide services. We write policies for owners in 29 countries and hold local registrations in Austria and Spain, with offices in Salzburg and Palma de Mallorca.
What matters in practice is not the flag on the policy but three things: whether the certificate is accepted at your marina, whether the cruising area in the contract matches where the boat actually lies, and who picks up the phone when something happens in a language you do not speak. The certificate comes in ten languages, the cruising area is yours to choose, and the correspondence with yard and harbour office is ours to handle.
Outside the EEA, United Kingdom included since Brexit, please ask before you assume. It is often possible, but it is a question, not a given.
Talk to a person
Tell us where the boat lies.
Type, length, value, home port and where you plan to sail. That is enough for a real answer.
Written for owners from abroad
What actually decides a claim in Europe
Insuring a boat in Europe from abroad turns on three documents, and none of them is the policy. The first is proof of VAT status: a boat traded inside the European Union should be able to show that import VAT has been paid, through a customs receipt, the original invoice or an unbroken chain of previous owners. Without it, customs can hold the boat and claim the tax from whoever owns it at the time, including a buyer acting in good faith.
The second is proof of liability cover. Germany does not require it, but Italy, Croatia, Spain and Denmark do, each with its own minimum sum, and marinas ask for the certificate rather than the policy. Our International Certificate of Insurance sits in your account in ten languages at no extra charge, and it is the document harbour offices actually accept.
The third is the agreed cruising range. It is the single most common reason a claim fails; not an exclusion, but a range drawn too narrowly when the contract was written and never revised. Range is agreed with us in advance and can be extended by telephone in minutes; what it cannot do is cover yesterday. If your plans change mid-season, call before you leave, not after you arrive.
On the cover itself, two clauses decide the outcome of a total loss. An agreed value means the sum in the policy is paid without a deduction for age; but only within the limits of German insurance law, which recognises an agreed value so long as it does not substantially exceed the real value of the boat. And salvage and wreck removal are paid in addition to the indemnity in our tariffs, not deducted from it: after a total loss the authority orders removal against the owner, whatever the policy says.
A word on how we work, because it differs from a broker. We are an underwriting agency: we write the risk and settle the claim ourselves, under authority from the insurer, which means no detour through a head office and one named contact throughout. We answer in English and Spanish, we have offices in Germany, Austria and Mallorca, and we publish our own declined claims, 231 files with the reasons they were refused. Read them before you buy a policy from anyone.
Before you sign
The three questions you actually have
Not “what does it cost”; you can work that out yourself in a minute. These are the three nobody asks an insurer out loud. Here they are, with the answers we can back up.
“Will they actually pay?”
We are an Assekuradeur; a managing general agent that underwrites and settles claims under its own authority. Our own claims department, appointed surveyors, more than 2,000 partner yards. Cover checked within 24 hours, release or a survey appointment within 48. We settle directly with the yard; you pay the deductible and nothing else.
What happens in the first 48 hours →“Who picks up the phone?”
A family firm since 1989, now in its second generation, with three of its own offices: Königs Wusterhausen near Berlin, Salzburg and Palma de Mallorca. No call centre, no franchise. You get a named contact from the first hour; and after office hours, a number somebody answers.
Out of hours: +49 3375 29 28 95 →“And if I choose wrong?”
Find the same cover cheaper elsewhere and we make up the difference. Our comparison sets seven providers against the same criteria; including the segments where somebody else comes out ahead of us, and the one where we are the most expensive in the field.
Price guarantee →When we are not the right fit →