Insurance for sailing schools and powerboat schools in Germany
At a sailing or powerboat school, the person at the helm is always someone who is still learning. Training boats come alongside hard, dinghies capsize, and on exam day the nerves are bigger than the harbour. The boats belong in a policy for training boats, the school on land in its own liability cover, and your students need accident cover that the law does not give them.
Are our school boats covered by an ordinary boat policy?
No. Private boat insurance excludes school use and changing skippers. Training boats need a tariff that expressly includes school use, exam runs and students at the helm, with a separate policy for each boat. As an underwriting agency (Assekuradeur) we designed this tariff ourselves, and we handle claims in house.
What goes wrong in this trade
01
Coming alongside
The harbour manoeuvre is part of every exam and the most common source of damage: fenders out too late, too much throttle, and the neighbouring yacht has a ding in its gelcoat.
02
Capsizes and injuries
Dinghies capsize, booms swing across, hands get caught between line and winch. Beginners do not yet know the dangers on board.
03
Students without accident cover
Unlike schoolchildren, course participants have no statutory accident insurance. After a serious accident, what counts is the cover the school has taken out voluntarily.
04
Weather during a course
A thunderstorm arrives faster than expected. Whether the instructor should have called off the session quickly ends up in court after a claim.
05
Equipment in class
Radios for the SRC course (the marine radio certificate), chart plotters, projectors and a simulator: expensive, fragile and often travelling in a car boot to the next course venue.
06
The instructor is off sick
Many schools depend on one or two instructors. A slipped disc in May costs half the season.
Covers the school on land: theory lessons, the jetty, safety briefings and damage to rented classrooms. Liability from handling the boats sits in the policy for the training boats.
The biggest item is the training boats. As the underwriting agency we price them on our own tariff, boat by boat, according to value, type and waters. The examples below cover the school business, which is insured alongside.
Insurance
Example
Typical range
Business liability
Sailing school with theory lessons and up to five instructors
about 150 to 350 euros a year
Group accident insurance
Participants during courses and exams, around 400 participants a year
about 200 to 500 euros a year
Business contents
Classroom, lifejackets and equipment worth 30,000 euros
about 150 to 350 euros a year
Electronic equipment
Radios, plotters and projector worth 10,000 euros, with cover away from the premises
about 150 to 300 euros a year
Occupational disability
Instructor aged 35, monthly benefit of 1,500 euros
about 1,100 to 2,200 euros a year
For comparison: Liability and accident cover for participants together cost about as much a year as two places on a course for the Sportbootführerschein, the German recreational boat licence.
Guide prices excluding German insurance tax, as of September 2026,
based on published tariff examples for comparable businesses and our own quoting experience.
Six things that really happen away from the boat, all on a single exam day. Damage to the training boats we handle in house under the boat insurance; here you see what the school business alongside has to carry.
Damage so far€45,000
A water pipe burst overnight in the classroom. The landlord's parquet floor and wall are soaked.
€6,500 · Paid by: Business liability
An exam candidate slips climbing across onto the dinghy, breaks a wrist and is off work for three months.
€9,000 · Paid by: Group accident insurance
The bag with six handheld radios and the plotter is stolen from the car at the course venue.
€4,200 · Paid by: Electronic equipment
During a briefing at the jetty, a spectator trips over a loose line and falls into the water. Glasses and phone are ruined, her knee injured.
€3,800 · Paid by: Business liability
The online registration has been hacked, and participants' addresses and copies of ID cards have leaked.
€7,500 · Paid by: Cyber insurance
Fire in the equipment shed: lifejackets, oilskins and teaching material are burnt.
€14,000 · Paid by: Business contents
Which package would you have had?
Paid by insurance: €0
Out of your own pocket: €45,000
Illustrative amounts before any excess.
What is paid depends on the policy terms.
Practical tips from your broker
Insure training boats on a tariff that expressly names school use, changing skippers and exam runs, with a separate policy for each boat.
Take out group accident insurance for your participants: course participants have no statutory accident cover.
Instructors on chartered yachts need skipper liability insurance, ideally including recourse claims from the charter company.
Keep a course log with the weather, participants and safety briefing. It helps when the question later comes up whether you should have called off the session.
Insure equipment with cover away from the premises if you teach at changing venues.
Use our free training pack with forms and calculators for your lessons, even if you are not a customer of ours.
Why NAMMERT for your business
Training boats on our own tariff
For boats we have our own cover concept and our own tariff for school use, exam runs and students at the helm. You get your cover from the people who also take up and file the claims.
We handle claims in house
After a botched harbour manoeuvre, you talk to us, not to a distant claims department. We know the boatyards, the surveyors and the damage beginners cause.
We know training
Schools and clubs use our training pack with forms and calculators for SBF and SKS teaching (German boat licence and coastal skipper courses) free of charge. We know what your course days look like.
Your broker for everything on land
For liability, accident cover for participants, equipment and your own income protection, we act as your broker and compare offers from several insurers, matched to your boat policies. A family business since 1989.
Frequently asked questions
Questions and answers
Does a sailing school have to be insured?
There is no legal requirement.
Harbour operators, landlords of classrooms and charter companies almost always ask for proof of
liability cover, though,
and without insurance on the boats every course would be a gamble.
Are students covered if they have an accident on a course?
Not by law, unlike children at school.
If the participant has no accident insurance of their own,
the only help is group accident cover from the school,
or a claim against the school if it was at fault.
Who pays if a student damages someone else's yacht while mooring?
The liability cover on the training boat.
For school boats insured with us,
we handle the claim ourselves and deal directly with the owner of the other yacht.
Is the instructor insured on a chartered yacht?
The charter company's insurance covers the boat, not the instructor.
For personal liability as skipper, the instructor needs their own skipper liability cover.
Can we use club boats for training?
Yes, but only if the club boat's insurance includes school use.
Raise it before the first course, otherwise training use is not covered.
What does insurance for a sailing school cost?
Liability and accident cover for participants usually come to about 350 to 850 euros a year.
The training boats are added per boat, and we price them from your boat list.
NAMMERT insurance broker
Request quotes for Sailing school
The recommended covers are ticked.
Change what does not fit; we compare quotes, in English.
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