insurance not paying
 

a few weeks ago while at lake of the ozarks my boat suffered some damage to the left sponson and took on around 300 gallons of water .I got it out of the water befor it sank but the insurance co. came to look at it and said they wern't paying due to there being a previous repair in that area .it appears to me to be a small repair behind where it came apart this time. there is a rip about 2 feet long and goes up the step around 2-3 inches . any one had any luck getting there ins. to pay in a simular situation or any suggestions i would appreciate there help

Re: insurance not paying
 

get a letter from a boar repair place saying that repars were up to industry standards and that the damage is impact damage. impact damage is the key.

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What is the name of your insurance company? Like to know how different insurance companies handle claims.

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I agree. Previous repair, even it it was bad, wasn't the cause if the new damage was impact damage.

They're probably throwing it against the wall to see what sticks. Borrow some of their KY for the wall and don't let any of it stick. :D

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any pics of the repair? if you are lucky (if you owned the boat at the time) and can produce picks of the repair and show it was done right, then you should be okay.... otherwise you probably will have to fight them, insurance companies don't make money paying claims....

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insurer is farm bureau ,i didn't own it when repairs were done . bought it last fall , ran it all summer and then this happened when at loto oct 8th for the harbor hop will get some pics asap

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It took a lawsuit and two years for my company to pay out.

Re: insurance not paying
 

What company?

I'm sure the rest of us would like to know to stay away from them.

I have progressive, they've always paid out promptly on boat and car claims. They paid for my motor which blew due to sucking up seaweed and overheating, despite the fact that the inside of the oil pan was painted, and the heat caused the paint to flake and suck up into the oil pump.

I'd rather pay an extra $500 a year for insurance if that's what it takes to actually get paid when something goes wrong.

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In Wisconsin we can threaten to call the State Insurance Commissioner and they take the side of the insured. Now the insurance company must prove their right. I have a friend that sells insurance and he told me that the last thing the insurance company wants to do is appear in front of the sate board. You can check to see if your state has anything like that

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if you want to e-mail me your number I will help all I can [email protected]

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got a copy of the adjusters report today ,he is an independent adjuster who works for frontier adjustors .his name iss pete kichline and apparently doesnt like boats his report contains many flat out lies and many more misconceptions about fiber glass work or damage i am meeting with the claims rep tomarrow to try to see them through all the bull this guy stacked up watch out for this guy if he eber looks at your boat

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Email gsmith. Aside from being an Eliminater douchbag, he knows a chitload about insurance.

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Keep on them.My wife is in the insurance business(allstae personal claims adjuster)she says that the upper management tell the insurance adjusters to lowball or deny to see what kind of reation they get.Believe it or not most people will not persue the issue.As a matter of fact I had a claim a couple of years ago.It went like this.I have some Troy Dennis all aluminum Dry sump blower motors.While running at about 5K RPM the alternator bracket broke and the alternator took out the oil pump belt and Bam!Blown motor.My wife told me to look carefully at the policy.My policicy said it will not cover mechanical failur(the alternator Bracket) but would cover damage caused by the failure.Well would you believe That allstate paid for a rebuild minus 5 percent depreciation.So look at you policy very carefully.I never thought that I would get this claim but I did.

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Iv'e seen a guy get a motor covered by insurance that pitched a rod, they paid for everything but the rod bolt that busted and caused it all.

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Sorry about the delayed post. I honestly can't remember what the companies name was. I tried searching for the threads, but they must have been purged. I did buy the policy through NBOA, the National Boat Owners Association. Just remember that the adjuster is not your friend. I have only had one adjuster that was ever fair. Everybody else lowballs and jerks your chain. In my case the adjuster was allowing $30 for a reconditioned aluminum prop. Mind you this prop was to go behind a 365 mag in a boat that went 70. We ended up settling for half of the repair cost. I sold the boat broken for a couple of grand, some guy did a half ass repair and tried to resell it on the board for 14 times the price he bought it for. Strangely, the boat went faster than it ever did when I had and it now had less power! Never found out who got suckered into buying it.

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It is the same as a fire. If the toaster catches on fire and burns the house down, every thing is covered except the toaster. What caused it is not covered, but the results are.

Re: insurance not paying
 

met with the agent that sold me the policy yesterday ,the origional adjuster was out and discussed the report from the independent appraiser . how he was full of **** and even flat out lied about a couple of things . the agent called the origional adjusters boss and he is susposed to call me back and send out some one else to look at the boat .so hopefully that is a step in the right direction . I kept explaining to him that this wasn't going down like it is and they better step up twards the end he was getting the picture I wasnt going away quietly ..thanks for the help on this deal and any other suggestions are greatly appreciated

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who is your ins. co. ? sounds like they sould be my new insurer.

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.May be I missed something, but did you actually hit something, or was this just structural failure, ie: like delamination? If you hit something, this should be very straight forward. May be the first appraiser didn't look close enough for impact damage.

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Same here. I did not read where there was anything actually hit. That can thicken the plot, so to say.

If it was a structural failure, it would seem that there would be coverage for repairs/replacement of damaged interior items, but there would be no coverage for hull repairs.

I'm a claims adjuster, lisenced NY State Fire Adjuster. I don't get into auto, boats, snow mobiles, etc. So my knowledge of boat ins. is limited, at best. Sorry, wish I could be of some help to you.

Re: insurance not paying
 

There is some evidense that we struck something submerged .I talked with the origional claims adjuster's boss today any he gave me 2 options # 1 I hire some one to go look at it and they hire someone else to look at it also .#2 they hire a structural engineer to go look at it .I'm leaning twards option #1 and searching for some one to look at it on my end they didn't say what they were thinking of next when the new reports came in at this point I 'm still playing along nicely

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:evilb: I never knew motors were covered by insurance, unless the boat sank or something then I could see the engine being covered. Hell that means I have a life time extended warranty on my engine. Who cares what the factory warranty is on your engine if you have boat insurance. WOT here I come. . If I only new this earlier could of saved me thousands. I guess the same would go for an automobile. This site is awesome :evilb: :evilb:

Re: insurance not paying
 

Be very carefull what you claim. Have a friend that had a bottom delaminate and boat sunk. Insurance wrote him a check per an adjusters estimate of damage. After recovery costs and rebuilding of the trans, drives, engines and repairs of water damaged things, boat is good as new. He just got the news from his Insurance Co. They will not be renewing his policy for his boat. He has all his buisness insurance with them, still cannot leverage them by threating to pull it also. To make matters worse, when he has tried to get insurnace from other carriers, one of the first questions on an application is has your policy ever been cancelled or denied from another insurance co. He got the claim paid and boat repaired, now he is talking about selling the boat because of insurance problems. Catch 22, got to have it, if you use it you loose it.

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is it in bad taste to tip an adjuster? :D

Re: insurance not paying
 

Not really Vandeano.For instance if a rod failed and tore up the engine it would not be coverded because the failed rod was the problem.Mine was different.I had to prove that the alternator Bracket broke.That was the mechanical failure(not covered).When the alternator fell it took out the belt for the external oil pump and there for the engine ran without oil pressure and blew.That was the damage caused by thye failure.It is a fine line.

Re: insurance not paying
 

I agree, you should go with option #1.

If there is evidence that you struck something, then this should be a slam dunk...sorry, no pun intended. You should defineitly have someone inspect the hull, on your behalf. My best guess would be to locate a marine survryer, or reputable boat hull repairer.... a company, that is "name brand" and or known, i.e. not a "back yard" specialist, if you know what I mean.

As far as how to handle the adjuster and or ins. carrier, I would suggest you play nice, for as long as you can. When I handle a claim, if someone is fair/reasonable/good with me, I'll do as much as I can for them. But if someone wants to jerk me around, lie, or be an azzhole, I will make their life miserable.....just human nature I guess.

Keep a log {names & dates} of your conversation/s with reps from the ins. carrier. PIA but if this gets dragged out and/or goes to court, records relatve to your claim will come in handy.

Also, do what you can to mitigate the damage to your boat. If things get worse from the boat just sitting there wet, the ins. co. may not pay for the consequential or, additional damage if you don't do what you can to prevent further damage....this is important. Also be sure and save any and all receipts regarding mitigation as you will likey recover that $$.

Best of luck.

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The boat is at a very reputable repair place with the owner having much expierence in this damage G Smith suggested the same thing and said don't even hire someone else tell the ins. co. I allready have someone knowledgable looking at the boat { the repair facility } and feel free to send out someone else that does know what they are doing to look if you want. I discussed this with the repair facility and the plan we came up with is . call the adjustor back and tell them we have a very detailed estimate and the lowespossible amount to fix it here it is lets just cut out all the bull of this person looking and that person looking and save the costs of dragging this on heres the one time deal if this isn't accepted you can't go back to this figure and it will be full shop rate to get it fixed and see if they don't pay . if not I guess its time to call my attorney .

Re: insurance not paying
 

Got it.....I just always thought anything to do with a motor was a separate policy, more or less like an extended engine warranty. One could look a an extended engine warranty like this. " If I through a rod that went through the oil pan and proceeded to rip through my hull and boat sank and caused all kinds of water damage if my extended engine warranty would cover my repairs to my boats physical damage." You kind of see what Im getting at with regular boat insurance....I just thought the engine and boat were 2 diferent types of policy.

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Sounds like you're all set with the repairer, that's a good thing. It sounds like he will need to verify/proove to your ins. co. that you did in fact hit something, in order to get coverage for hull repairs.

As far as the cost to repair, it is what it is $$ wise. If you have a covered loss I wouldn't bother wheeling and dealing with the ins. co. Just give them a competitive/reasonable estimate and that should take care of it.

If you have a legit/covered claim, and the ins. co. doesn't pay, then it's atty time. Suggest you get an atty that specializes in insurance related issues, if that's what it comes to. I've been involved with insurance in one capacity or another for about 25 years. I've found that when there's a dispute, it's usually due to ignorance of policy coverage, on the part of the insured. But every so often it's the adjuster who screws up. Or, sometimes the insured is trying to screw the ins. co., or on occasion, vise versa. It can be a real PIA

Hope you get it settled ok.