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Personal accident and legal expenses: two different questions
Short answer
A hull and liability wording answers for the boat and for other people.
An injury to yourself and a dispute with a yard are two further questions,
and each is usually settled in a contract of its own.
A yacht wording is built around two things: damage to the boat and claims brought by other people. Neither of them speaks to the two situations owners in Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands ask about once they have read the schedule properly. The first is an injury to the skipper or to someone in the family on board, where nobody else is at fault and there is therefore nobody to claim against. The second is a dispute: with a yard over an invoice, with a marina over a berth, with another owner after a touch in a lock.
Personal accident benefit pays a stated sum on death or on permanent disability, without asking who was to blame. Two lines in such a wording are worth finding. One is the list of activities, because racing, powered watersports and passages out of sight of land are excluded by a fair number of general accident and travel policies, and a race weekend or a jet ski is exactly what many boat owners do with their summer. The other is whether the sum applies to each person or to the vessel: several wordings written for boats state one total for the craft and divide it among the people on board, so a figure that reads generously for a couple reads differently with five aboard. With us, accident cover in Basis protects the owner only, Basis Plus adds close family and Premium all authorised occupants; racing is included only in Premium.
Legal expenses works the other way round. No sum is handed over, a case is funded instead, and what matters is the list of areas included. A row over a repair bill is contract law, a fine after a speed check is regulatory, a claim for damages after a collision is something else again, and a wording may take in one and leave out the next. Two further lines are worth finding before they are needed: whether you may instruct a solicitor of your own choosing or are directed to a panel firm, and whether the protection travels with the boat, because a dispute with a yard in Spain or Croatia is where the question usually lands.
Worth remembering
A stated sum
is what accident benefit pays
A funded case
is what legal expenses buys
One asks how badly somebody was hurt, the other asks who was right. A single afternoon on the water can raise both.
Questions
What owners ask us about this
Is accident benefit the same as third party liability?
No. Accident benefit pays a stated sum to you or your family whoever was at fault. Third party liability answers a claim that somebody else brings against you, and it deals with their proven loss rather than a fixed figure agreed in advance.
Does a travel or life policy already do this?
Sometimes, but read the list of activities first. Racing, powered watersports and passages out of sight of land are excluded by a good number of general policies, and those are precisely the situations a boat owner has in mind when asking the question.
Is the sum per person or per boat?
Both are written, and the difference is large. Where a wording states one sum for the vessel it is divided among the people on board, so the figure to judge is that sum divided by the crew you normally carry, not the headline number.
May I choose my own solicitor?
Wordings differ, and several direct you to a panel firm for the first stage of a dispute. It is a quick thing to check in advance and an awkward one to discover halfway through an argument with a boatyard.
Related
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