Risk and Insurance

The Spirit of Yachting within the Shustoke Offshore Section

We all sail together and enjoy our yachting, be that cruising or racing, as friends: none of us is being paid as a professional, and we share the costs equally amongst us in a totally transparent way. All for One and One for All.

Risk and Insurance

Yachting in general and yacht racing in particular are adventurous activities, and by that very nature are exposed to risks of varying degrees. As a skipper and crew, we aim to sail safely, within the bounds of our collective capabilities to mitigate those risks, and make our sport a fun and enjoyable activity. Despite the training, capability, diligence and professionalism of the yacht charterer and crew there are still events and liabilities that we are exposed to: Insurance is there to cover the more important events and liabilities where economically feasible.

Risk exposure in our yacht chartering world can be divided into 4 areas:-

1. Yacht charter liabilities, such as damage resulting from yacht equipment failure: these liabilities are covered by the yacht insurance, which is provided by the boat owner or his agent.
2. Personal liabilities, such as loss or damage to personal effects (phone, camera etc.): these liabilities are covered by personal insurance provided by each crew member individually.
3. Skipper and crew liabilities, such as injury caused by one crew member on another: these liabilities are covered by skipper's liability insurance provided by the skipper undertaking the charter.
4. Finally, there are all the other minor liabilities where the risk is deemed low (or, the insurance cost would be prohibitively high) and these are covered collectively and severally by the charter skipper and crew themselves.

Skipper Liability Insurance

Skipper Third Party Liability Insurance policy covers the skipper for legal liabilities to third parties arising out of an accident whilst they are skippering a boat they do not own and when the boat's own liability insurance either does not exist or cannot be applied. It provides an additional layer of personal protection that serves as a safety net. The skipper is covered for third party injury and death as well as that for crew members. Cover extends to crew members for their legal liabilities for personal injury to the skipper or other members of the crew. Cover is also provided for claims of lost charter fees by the owner or agent, arrest of the yacht, associated legal fees. The above provides an indication of the sort of cover to be expected, and of course will be subject to the actual policy terms and conditions applicable.

Pantaenius Skipper Third Party Liability Insurance fulfils this need and a number of us have taken out their insurance policy as such. As an example of the cover we have taken: for yachts of <17m, for world-wide cover (excluding USA and Canada), with a GBP 6m sum insured, the annual premium is £94.11 : we see this cost as not only reasonable, but to be included (pro-rata) in the budget for each organised event. For more details and online application see :- Pantaenius Skipper Third Party Liability Insurance

Downloads

• Skippers Third Party Liability Insurance Key Facts.pdf

Last updated 15:28 on 12 November 2023