Owners try to drive down costs of superyacht insurance policies
Superyacht insurance companies need to show the value of their offering or risk a race to the bottom on fees according to a panel gathered at this weeks Superyacht Investor London 2016 conference. The insurance offering used to be the second largest single cost on the spreadsheet of a superyacht owner after crew but now finds itself at the bottom of that list.
Simon Ballard, managing director of CRS Yachts, said: “We’ve made our products too cheap and people don’t understand the quality…it’s a buyers’ market for insurance at the moment.”
This sentiment was echoed by Paul Miller, director of underwriting at Hiscox, who added: “The market is soft, so there is some movement in pricing at the moment.”
Ballard added that if consumers were thinking about insurance of something of high quality and high value for their homes they would insist on getting the right policy to make sure they were covered for such items, but that this did not necessarily translate in the superyacht sector.
“In our households or in our business lives if something is very expensive whether its a piece of machinery, a piece of equipment, whatever. If it’s an expensive piece of kit we get the right [policy].
“We’re seeing policies for 45 metre boats for 50 metre boats where the the main hull insurance for the main asset costs you less than your stewardess costs you,” he said.
He ended the session with a warning to the maritime insurance world, “yes, clients will shop around, and people will be cheaper,” he said.
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