Anyone had any recent experience securing hull or 3rd Party Liability insurance for Svalbard.. I’m struggling to find anyone in the UK willing to cover this year.. although strangely Jan Mayen and Greenland don’t seem to be a problem.. only Edward Williams who are not regulated in the UK and have a very poor reputation when it comes to settling claims have agreed to cover!!

Thanks
Steve

Hi Simon, It looks like I’ve found one, probably the only one.. Velos.. They have quoted me for Arctic and whilst a little expensive they are a very reputable company.. their policy is also nice a clear and not in any way onerous.. for example I’m covered singlehanded for 24 hours in any 36 hour period in any of the territories I’m covered for with no other stupid requirements to provide crew details, seek permission etc etc. so very easy for me to plan for longer passages, it’s simple, if the passage is over 24 hrs I just need one other onboard and I’m covered.. they also gave me 10% discount for OCC membership..

Just refining the coverage because I asked them to quote for my plans for the next 12 months which included crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean later in the year to make sure that they would also cover that, but as those plans are not yet settled they are now revising the quote to allow me to add that if it goes ahead.

I did uncover another company in the Uk that specialise in insuring Arctic and Antarctic expedition boats but they will only cover Steel or Aluminium hulls

Oh and Velos said Cuba was fine, the only area around the Caribbean that they wouldn’t cover was Venezuela .

Steve
Thanks for sharing. Great that you got an occ discount too.

Our issue with Cuba was that our U.K. broker uses a US underwriter and thus are forbidden from writing cover for Cuba. We didn’t want to go through the whole survey and quoting process just to get cover for a relatively small part if this season’s cruise.

Simon

+x

 

Steve.Bradley - 19 Mar 2023

Oh and Velos said Cuba was fine, the only area around the Caribbean that they wouldn’t cover was Venezuela .

It’s probably worth you looking at Velos at some point, the underwriter they have used for me is Great Lakes SE (Germany) and unlike some of the other insurance companies that quoted me (without Arctic) who were all very particular about surveys, and frequency of re surveys, providing detailed evidence of work completed, copy of survey, copy of invoices and so on, Velos are the complete opposite, my boat was last surveyed in 2021 and I disclosed this fact together with a statement that any recommendations have been addressed when I submitted the proposal they have accepted that.. I guess it may have been different if I hadn’t had a fairly recent survey but from speaking to the underwriter and reading the T&Cs they clearly operate much more on a basis of trust, it’s quite refreshing and certainly not my usual experience. There is a lot of other nice clauses in the terms, like being covered if I have to enter territorial waters outside those defined in the policy to seek refuge, being covered beyond the renewal date if I’m at sea, it feels like I’ve found an insurance company that actually understands sailing!!