One Marine Minute: #2 Does my marine insurance meet my navigation needs?

Welcome to our series on Marine Insurance FAQs. We receive many of the same questions about the intricacies of Marine Insurance, so we thought, as a service to our current and potential customers, we would just go straight to the source. We've sat down with our Marine Insurance specialists at our Wells Wrightsville Beach office to provide answers to your questions.

FAQ: #2 Does my marine insurance meet my navigation needs?

Answer:
So one of the questions I will often ask our customers is, "What are your navigation needs?" Your marine insurance policy will meet your navigation needs as long as those are disclosed at time of quoting. And what we mean by that is, where are you going to be taking the boat and when are you going to be taking it there? What is your itinerary for the upcoming year? If you are in waters that are not covered under your navigational warranty, then you potentially have no coverage while you're navigating those waters. And once we determine where you're going to take the boat and when you're going to take it there, then we can define those limits within the policy to meet your individual needs. Many carriers will allow you to go say, Florida, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos. Not a problem at all as long as you do not do it from June 1 to usually it's November 1. Some carriers have specific or a little bit different dates, like say November 11th, but you know for the most part it's June 1 to November 1. What that means is, say north of that South Carolina/Georgia border, or you have no coverage. Navigation needs are always going to be changing. If you're an avid fisherman, you might want to get a trip endorsement. If you think that you're going outside of your navigation limits, just give us a call. We're here to help you understand what you're getting through us, because we want to make sure that you understand what we're selling you in the end.