Is there a hurricane season blackout?

Anyone heading for the Caribbean, the Pacific or the Indian Ocean meets the same construction in nearly every policy we reviewed: a blackout period, spelled out in dates and coordinates. Typical are 1 June to 30 November between ten and 37 degrees north, and 1 November to 1 May between ten and 30 degrees south. Inside those windows, damage from a named tropical storm is either excluded outright or covered only if a list of warranties has been met.

Those warranties are not fine print, they are work: unstep the mast and store it in a secured mast rack, remove sails, covers and sprayhood, take halyards off the rig, dinghy, liferaft and outboard ashore, tripled and crossed mooring lines in armoured hose, four large fenders a side. Or, as the alternative, the boat permanently manned and made ready to lie, with two properly laid anchors on separate chain. And the threshold is often lower than expected: it starts when the National Hurricane Center names the storm, so from about 63 km/h.

What matters is the consequence of a breach. In the wordings we reviewed the warranty is usually built as a risk exclusion or a condition precedent, not as a duty. That means no cover at all, with no prior warning, no argument about causation and no grading by fault. Miss one warranty and you are not worse off, you are uninsured. We carry no hurricane or cyclone clause and no blackout period. One limit does apply: in Basis, cover ends once the boat lies unmanned off an open coast for more than 24 hours, in Basis Plus after 48 hours, unless it can be moved without delay. So compare not only whether a provider writes worldwide, but what they expect of you in the Caribbean in summer.

Worth remembering

Every insurer checked steers the storm season by blackout dates and boundaries. Leaving late is not late, it is outside.