Liability Insurance limits

Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Our Marina on Lake Michigan (owned by the City of East Chicago, IN) is under going a renovation. They sent me my 2017 application, and have changed the insurance requirements to now carry liability insurance of "$1,000,000 per person, and not more than $5,000,000 per occurrence for bodily injury, including death".

That seems incredibly high. I carry $300,000 liability coverage now.

What are "typical" liability requirements in your marina?

Greg
 
Rick D

Rick D

.
Jun 14, 2008
7,139
Hunter Legend 40.5 Shoreline Marina Long Beach CA
Tally Ho said:
Our Marina on Lake Michigan (owned by the City of East Chicago, IN) is under going a renovation. They sent me my 2017 application, and have changed the insurance requirements to now carry liability insurance of "$1,000,000 per person, and not more than $5,000,000 per occurrence for bodily injury, including death".

That seems incredibly high. I carry $300,000 liability coverage now.

What are "typical" liability requirements in your marina?

Greg
Click to expand
Are you sure that isn't "less than" $5,000,000 per occurrence? That's an odd liability requirement. Ours is $500,000/$1,000,000 as I recall. Anyhow, I think you need to clarify the five million thing with them.
 
Charles Erwin

Charles Erwin

.
Jan 30, 2012
1,123
Nor'Sea 27 "Kiwanda" Portland/ Anacortes
Talley Ho

How much more premium for the highest possible limits per person/per event? Bet you will find out the premium increase for the higher limits (much more protection for you) is trivial. Please check and let the rest of us know what you find out.

By the way - $300 K is pretty thin.

Charles
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Charles Erwin said:
Talley Ho

How much more premium for the highest possible limits per person/per event? Bet you will find out the premium increase for the higher limits (much more protection for you) is trivial. Please check and let the rest of us know what you find out.

By the way - $300 K is pretty thin.

Charles
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I have sent a note to my insurance guy to see what the premium would be.

Thanks for the input. Will keep you posted.

Greg
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Rick D said:
Are you sure that isn't "less than" $5,000,000 per occurrence? That's an odd liability requirement. Ours is $500,000/$1,000,000 as I recall. Anyhow, I think you need to clarify the five million thing with them.
Click to expand
I sent my insurance guy the letter from the Marina....will keep you posted as to what develops. Your coverages seem reasonable to me, but $1M/$5M seems excessive.

I suspect the Marina is just covering their ass. They are taking a part of the Marina and removing slips to put in kayak and canoe area. So they remove 1/2 of the revenue-generating slips to try and give local residents a free canoe ride. Seems fraught with disaster of someone in a kayak getting run over by a boat trying to get into the Marina.

I guess we will see. I have another alternative marina, but they may be full by the time the EC Marina gets done making things difficult for people to keep a boat there.

Greg
 
quadrille38

quadrille38

.
Apr 11, 2010
947
Hunter 38 Whitehall MI
Inquire of your agent about an umbrella liability policy.
All your other policies such as home, auto, boat have individual liability coverage and the umbrella sits over the top of that.

They are relatively inexpensive. I carry a $3 million dollar umbrella (recommended after consultation with financial planner and attorney based in part on the assets you want to protect, the nature of the risks you are protecting against - boating is higher risk) and its under $300 a year
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
I did check about an umbrella liability policy for the same reasons you have one Q38. I have not pulled the trigger on it yet as my insurance requires me to raise my auto liability limits in order to get the umbrella policy (but I plan to get it). But my insurance (State Farm) only writes $1M or $2M umbrella policies, so it still may not be enough.

Greg
 
Rick D

Rick D

.
Jun 14, 2008
7,139
Hunter Legend 40.5 Shoreline Marina Long Beach CA
Yea, double check that $5 million deal. That's the weird part. Most policies with limits over $1 million weren't written that way; most were single limits. I say "were" since I have been out of the market for many years and things may have changed. To me, it sounds like they got advice from an attorney who is clueless about insurance limits and practice. Again, I certainly me be wrong, but I would recommend double-checking.
 
quadrille38

quadrille38

.
Apr 11, 2010
947
Hunter 38 Whitehall MI
Tally Ho said:
I did check about an umbrella liability policy for the same reasons you have one Q38. I have not pulled the trigger on it yet as my insurance requires me to raise my auto liability limits in order to get the umbrella policy (but I plan to get it). But my insurance (State Farm) only writes $1M or $2M umbrella policies, so it still may not be enough.

Greg
Click to expand

Yes I had to raise my auto limit as well to meet the umbrella requirement.
We have Farm Bureau and the $3 million was no problem to get.
$5 mil does seem really excessive. If you were looking just for your protection and had a very sizable asset base you were trying to protect maybe but for the marina to be requiring it seem kind of out of the norm. Makes me wonder if they got named in an action that was related to a boaters actions and the boater didn't have enough coverage to handle the claim.
 
Gunni

Gunni

.
Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
Sounds like some paper-pushing genius in the City public works department decided to flow-down the City's liability limits to the slip holders. That $5M nonsense is the tell. Plan on a face-to-face with said genius after your agent tells you how much that kind of coverage will cost you. And potentially a group of other slip holders and you making an appearance at a City Council meeting to petition for reason. A $1M dollar Liability coverage should be plenty.
 
Stu Jackson

Stu Jackson

.
Feb 26, 2004
22,776
Catalina 34 224 Maple Bay, BC, Canada
Tally Ho said:
What are "typical" liability requirements in your marina?
Click to expand
Greg, life isn't typical, but...

In California, it was $300,000

Here in Canada the norm is $1,000,000, so I had to pay extra to get it raised, less than $200 a year more, but we only pay <$500 in premiums yearly to begin with.

I agree with most that $5 is crazy. Do you have any friends in Chicago, the other marinas? Are they all doing the same thing? IIRC, almost all the marinas are city owned.
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
I did speak to my insurance agent, and I can raise my liability coverage to $1M for a modest increase in premium. Getting $5M means an umbrella policy, which he said will not be cheap. I wrote to the Marina manager tonight to question the policy limits they have asked for and informed her about the issues getting $5M in coverage. Hopefully, I will hear back soon.

Thanks for the feedback.

Greg
 
Ron20324

Ron20324

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Jan 22, 2008
8,050
Beneteau 323 Annapolis MD
Geico has my umbrella for 1 mill for 147 a year. Covers boat, car, condo.
 
M

MitchM

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Jan 20, 2005
1,021
Nauticat 321 pilothouse 32 Erie PA
i'd write to the mayor of this town with copies to the news paper and ask him to send you a copy ASAP OF what ordinance authorizes the city marina to increase the insurance rates to such ASTRONOMICAL levels ..." this represents an increase of " x per cent per year for good taxpayers on social security like yourself... "
it's possible a city clerk flunked 6th grade arithmetic and does not understand the difference between 300 000 and 3 000 000. or made a typo.....
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
4,776
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Well, after writing to the Marina manager, I received an update today. City attorney revised the requirement to $300k for injury liability.

So, it looks like "the man" gave in on this one.

I may still increase my liability coverage to $1M, but at least I am not forced to get a $4M umbrella policy to cover the difference.

Thanks for all your input.

Greg
 
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