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Surveyor's fees

Boat insurance term, area: Settlement

After damage to a boat, someone has to establish what is broken, what caused it and what the repair will cost. That work is done by a marine surveyor, and the fee is rarely small. Who ends up paying it is normally decided before the survey rather than after it. Many hull wordings reimburse a survey only where the insurer commissioned it or agreed to it in advance, so a report ordered privately at the travel lift on a Saturday can stay with the owner. In liability and legal expenses wordings the logic differs again, because expert fees sit inside the costs of pursuing a claim.

What to check: Two questions for your own contract: does it reimburse a survey only when the insurer commissioned it or approved it beforehand, and whom do you call before instructing anyone? And in a liability claim, are expert fees paid in addition to the sum insured or taken out of it?

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