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Assistance services

Boat insurance term, area: Hull

Assistance is the organised help around a boating incident rather than payment for the damage to the boat itself: finding a yard, storing or moving the boat, hotel nights, the journey home, an interpreter, a loan for bail abroad, a relief skipper to bring the boat back to her home berth. Hull wordings usually carry it as a separate schedule with its own limit for each service, and reimbursement is normally restricted to help the insurer arranged or agreed beforehand. A failed drive off Corsica shows the split: the hull claim is one question, getting crew and boat home is another.

What to check: Two questions for your own contract: is assistance included at all or only as an optional extension, and what separate limits apply to bringing the boat home and to a relief skipper? And must the insurer's own emergency line organise the help before anything is reimbursed?

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