Does the policy pay for lost charter income?

A hull claim in July costs twice: once for the repair and once for the weeks the boat does not sail. Insurance pays the repair, not as a rule the lost income. The reason is an old decision of property insurance law: what is indemnified is the damage to the thing, not the lost use. Loss of hire and loss of charter income therefore sit expressly among the indirect losses that are not indemnified, with us as in nearly all the wordings we reviewed.

There is one exception, and it is routinely confused with the first. Two providers do pay a charter loss, but not yours: the case meant is that you charter someone else’s boat, cause damage there, and the owner has to cancel the following bookings. That loss belongs to a third party, and third parties are the province of liability cover, not hull. Sums of that kind run between 20,000 and 25,000 euros and require bookings already made and paid for, plus a repair lasting longer than a few days.

For you as an owner chartering out this means: your own lost season is not a matter for the boat policy but for your costing. What insurance can contribute is speed. The faster cover is confirmed and the yard starts, the shorter the downtime. Choose a charter policy on that, not on a loss-of-income clause that barely exists in the wordings we reviewed.

Worth remembering

Consequential loss is excluded in nearly every hull wording we reviewed. Anyone who lives off the boat needs a separate cover for it.