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Deliberate damage (intent)

Boat insurance term, area: Exclusions

Deliberate damage means a loss the insured person wanted to happen, rather than one caused by a lapse of attention. Setting fire to a boat, or running it aground on purpose to claim the sum insured, is the textbook case. This is the hard edge of marine wordings: gross negligence normally lets an insurer cut a payment in proportion to the fault, while intent takes the claim away completely. Intent also counts after the event. A knowingly false account of how a loss happened, or a theft left unreported on purpose, breaks the policy conditions intentionally.

What to check: Two questions for your own contract: does the wording keep deliberate acts and gross negligence apart, and does it state what happens to a claim in each case? And is a breach of the duties that follow a loss, such as reporting a theft, treated more harshly when it was intentional?

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What applies to you is set only by the wording of your own policy.

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