Insurance payment on refloat/slavage
 

A good friend of mine has(d) a 24' SeaRay BR. Over the weekend we had monsoon rains. The cover pooled up with water and then split. It dumped a tremendous amount of water into the boat all at once. The bilge pump outlet is only about 6" above the waterline at the stern. It was determined that the weight of the water overcame the pumps and sunk it at the dock.

BoatUS came and refloated and towed to a safe area. Bill was about $3k all in. They took the Insurance claim # and left.

Now, the Insurance company(Allstate) is stating they will only pay $500 of the $3k and deduct the rest from the payout. If he'd known that he said he would've left it sunk and they could have arranged the job.

Does that sound right on the payment? I have had my problems with INS co's and their BS policies before(do a search here) and think they are trying screw him.

Sounds like BS to me too. 3k does not seem out line for what they did.

From my understanding, the way those salvage deals work is they shoot for the moon on the original quote, becuase they are almost always negotiated way down. If the insurance company says $500, try and have them help negotiate this as a final settlement for both with boat us, if that doesnt work, have your friend start negotiating on the rest asap. My captian used to do this kind of work in miami, so I will ask his advice as well and see what he says tomorrow.

Thanks for checking into this for me.

Next time call the ins. co. before doing anything, and leave the POS at the bottom of the dock... It seems to me that they have little interest in actually preserving any of these boats....

I don't think that is a possibilty. When boats go down in our marina, they have to be refloated asap to keep the oil/fuel, battery acids and the rest from leaking out. The EPA would have a feast.

I don't mean for weeks (or even days), I just mean call the ins. co. before doing anything. Then they'll be forced to agree to it or send out their own guys.

Several yrs ago I hit a under water reef on Erie and lost a drive. Had to call BoatUS (or whatever the tow service is there) for a tow back to Put In Bay where we were staying. Since the driver could not boat up next to us do to teh shallow water and underwater reefs, he actually dropped anchor and waded over to us with a tow rope (and paper work) and towed us back. Do to him physically getting out of his boat, it classified the service as a salvage operation, not a simple tow service. Difference was a good $2000. Talk about feeling your guts drop to the floor when handed a bill. I about chit. We had Allstate at the time. As it turned out, do to the 'salvage' classification, Ins. paid the tow bill 100%. If it would have been a simple tow bill classification, I think the amount Ins would have paid out was under $100???. And to think, I considered pushing my boat out to deeper water to make the bill cheaper, or so I thought. I believe we talked with an Allstate office based out of Chicago or near Lake Michigan, at the recommendation of BoatUS since that agency deals with this type of claim, vs your regular home/auto agency that normally doesn't work with claims.

We had issues this weekend also,:party-smiley-004:
Sea Tow wanted 250$ and 15$ per for the first hour. then 250$ for each hour after that. these guys from Pink Marine Contractors were in the area and did it for free.

info

:drink:

I used to own a company called MarSalvor and we contracted most of the Salvage work for Progressive, Statefarm and several other ins. companies. Usually the terms of vessel salvage are detailed in your policy and can vary from state to state. 3000 to raise a 24' is close to appropriate. Our contract with Progressive paid 105 per foot, plus dry transport, which for a 24' boat, would have been another $ 230.

In Florida, the law dictates that a sinking is a LIABILITY issue and the insurance company is responsible to remove the vessel and mitigate all related environmental impact associated with the incident.

Be careful with many of the chain tow-boat firms. Sea Tow, for example, can be your best friend, or your worst enemy and a lot has to do with the individual operator/ franchisee. I've had the worst experiences in Tampa and the best in Destin/ Pensacola. The difference... the local operators.

PS.. I sold the company to Insurance Auto Auctions in June of last year... It was a good move as the insurance companies are getting harder to deal with as money grows tight.

Heres the info I have gotten so far: The normal rate for a hard job is $150 a foot, boat us pays $75 a foot to their out source.

I am awaiting info on negotiation tactics.

Thanks so much.

I apologize for the late post but this discussion was only brought to my attention today. I would like to clarify that the Tampa Bay area problems Todd mentioned with Sea Tow were with the former owners of the franchise; which is one of the reasons they are no longer the owners.

I purchased this franchise in 2007 after working and running another Sea Tow franchise in New Jersey owned by my father since 1987. I spoke with Todd at length about these issues and thought this was history. I am disappointed that a comment would be posted like this as vague as it is because it is very damaging to me and my employees. I think I am qualified as much if not more than anyone else in the Tampa Bay area to provide these services and do so at very reasonable rates. I have always offered fair pricing and think this is somewhat evident in the fact that between myself and my father, we have been in the marine towing and salvage business for 23 years now.

If anyone has had issues similar to this I would appreciate knowing about them and discussing them further.

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/g...rewithLogo.jpg

I sincerely Apologize to Skip for not clarifying that the franchise I had a problem with had been sold. AND to clarify, I have heard nothing but great things about Skip's operation and the high ethical standards he maintains. Again, my bad.

T.