Anyone had any recent experience securing hull or 3rd Party Liability insurance for Svalbard.. I’m struggling to find anyone in the UK willing to cover this year.. although strangely Jan Mayen and Greenland don’t seem to be a problem.. only Edward Williams who are not regulated in the UK and have a very poor reputation when it comes to settling claims have agreed to cover!!

Thanks
Steve

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Steve.Bradley - 15 Mar 2023

Anyone had any recent experience securing hull or 3rd Party Liability insurance for Svalbard.. I’m struggling to find anyone in the UK willing to cover this year.. although strangely Jan Mayen and Greenland don’t seem to be a problem.. only Edward Williams who are not regulated in the UK and have a very poor reputation when it comes to settling claims have agreed to cover!! ThanksSteve

Hi Steve,
I have a US flagged boat and had been with an US company, IMIS/Gowrie Group, for insurance for many years. Going to northern Norway (not Svalbard) we had to add a rider onto our policy and pay a fee. A few years later we needed to do the same when we went to Iceland and Greenland. I would think a UK ins co would do the same.
Good luck. Let us know what you find.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
As an aside: I complained to my insurance co (not surprisingly to no avail) that the coast of Norway was among some of the safest, most supportive cruising we had experienced. We went above the Artic Circle. You were mostly inside barrier islands and were almost always in vhf contact (or go around the corner to get clear of a mt.) and there was SAR boats up and down the coast (become a member: they are very helpful well beyond emergency services). I felt similarly about Iceland (in season cruising) whose cruising in no way approached what I consider expedition level. Greenland, however, was far more challenging in a myriad of ways and well deserved the surcharge on insurance.

Thanks Dick. The challenge seems to be anything above 73N the underwriters are no longer willing to cover and it’s clearly changed this year because I had quotes last year and I have spoken to several owners who managed to insure last year with companies that are now no longer covering, between myself and my broker we have only found one specialist underwriter that’s still covering Svalbard but only for Steel and Alloy hulls.. the other option being Lloyds open register but we know that’s likely to be a 20-30K premium.. we are not entirely sure what’s changed between last year and this other than the overall exposure and risk in marine insurance but that’s more related to shipping/super yachts etc rather than the relatively few yachts venturing into arctic waters.. I’m still awaiting reply’s from two companies but not feeling hopeful..

I was expecting hull insurance to be difficult and expensive but was ent expecting it to be impossible, and I certainly wasn’t expecting 3rd party indemnity cover to be such an issue.: I guess it’s going to be entirely at my own risk..

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Steve.Bradley - 16 Mar 2023

Thanks Dick. The challenge seems to be anything above 73N the underwriters are no longer willing to cover and it’s clearly changed this year because I had quotes last year and I have spoken to several owners who managed to insure last year with companies that are now no longer covering, between myself and my broker we have only found one specialist underwriter that’s still covering Svalbard but only for Steel and Alloy hulls.. the other option being Lloyds open register but we know that’s likely to be a 20-30K premium.. we are not entirely sure what’s changed between last year and this other than the overall exposure and risk in marine insurance but that’s more related to shipping/super yachts etc rather than the relatively few yachts venturing into arctic waters.. I’m still awaiting reply’s from two companies but not feeling hopeful.. I was expecting hull insurance to be difficult and expensive but was ent expecting it to be impossible, and I certainly wasn’t expecting 3rd party indemnity cover to be such an issue.: I guess it’s going to be entirely at my own risk..

Hi Steve,
Bummer!
Thanks for the fill.
Lots of adventurous cruising boats have self-insured, or self-insured when they wished to do something out of the norm, so you will be in good company.
As to why?? I see less willingness to spend the time to correctly assess risk: from skipper to boat to itinerary, and more willingness to adhere to sometimes arbitrary parameters.
I hope it is a great trip.
My best, Dick

Steve

Arctic Greenland and Canada have been challenging since 2018. We were wintering in Aasiaat when Topsail dumped us and I know most companies have now completely withdrawn from the Arctic. The occ spent quite a lot of energy trying to persuade brokerages to be more pragmatic but didn’t really achieve much. Things are made more difficult by regulations that now stop non-American flagged boats being insured through US brokers and, I think, vice versa.

If it’s any consolation it’s not just the Arctic. I know boats in the southern hemisphere have struggled and we had no insurance for our time in Cuba this year.

Simon

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Dick - 16 Mar 2023

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Steve.Bradley - 16 Mar 2023

Thanks Dick. The challenge seems to be anything above 73N the underwriters are no longer willing to cover and it’s clearly changed this year because I had quotes last year and I have spoken to several owners who managed to insure last year with companies that are now no longer covering, between myself and my broker we have only found one specialist underwriter that’s still covering Svalbard but only for Steel and Alloy hulls.. the other option being Lloyds open register but we know that’s likely to be a 20-30K premium.. we are not entirely sure what’s changed between last year and this other than the overall exposure and risk in marine insurance but that’s more related to shipping/super yachts etc rather than the relatively few yachts venturing into arctic waters.. I’m still awaiting reply’s from two companies but not feeling hopeful.. I was expecting hull insurance to be difficult and expensive but was ent expecting it to be impossible, and I certainly wasn’t expecting 3rd party indemnity cover to be such an issue.: I guess it’s going to be entirely at my own risk..

Hi Steve,
Bummer!
Thanks for the fill.
Lots of adventurous cruising boats have self-insured, or self-insured when they wished to do something out of the norm, so you will be in good company.
As to why?? I see less willingness to spend the time to correctly assess risk: from skipper to boat to itinerary, and more willingness to adhere to sometimes arbitrary parameters.
I hope it is a great trip.
My best, Dick

Hi Simon, It looks like I’ve found one, probably the only one.. Velos.. They have quoted me for Arctic and whilst a little expensive they are a very reputable company.. their policy is also nice a clear and not in any way onerous.. for example I’m covered singlehanded for 24 hours in any 36 hour period in any of the territories I’m covered for with no other stupid requirements to provide crew details, seek permission etc etc. so very easy for me to plan for longer passages, it’s simple, if the passage is over 24 hrs I just need one other onboard and I’m covered.. they also gave me 10% discount for OCC membership..

Just refining the coverage because I asked them to quote for my plans for the next 12 months which included crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean later in the year to make sure that they would also cover that, but as those plans are not yet settled they are now revising the quote to allow me to add that if it goes ahead.

I did uncover another company in the Uk that specialise in insuring Arctic and Antarctic expedition boats but they will only cover Steel or Aluminium hulls

Oh and Velos said Cuba was fine, the only area around the Caribbean that they wouldn’t cover was Venezuela .

Steve
Thanks for sharing. Great that you got an occ discount too.

Our issue with Cuba was that our U.K. broker uses a US underwriter and thus are forbidden from writing cover for Cuba. We didn’t want to go through the whole survey and quoting process just to get cover for a relatively small part if this season’s cruise.

Simon

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Steve.Bradley - 19 Mar 2023

Oh and Velos said Cuba was fine, the only area around the Caribbean that they wouldn’t cover was Venezuela .

It’s probably worth you looking at Velos at some point, the underwriter they have used for me is Great Lakes SE (Germany) and unlike some of the other insurance companies that quoted me (without Arctic) who were all very particular about surveys, and frequency of re surveys, providing detailed evidence of work completed, copy of survey, copy of invoices and so on, Velos are the complete opposite, my boat was last surveyed in 2021 and I disclosed this fact together with a statement that any recommendations have been addressed when I submitted the proposal they have accepted that.. I guess it may have been different if I hadn’t had a fairly recent survey but from speaking to the underwriter and reading the T&Cs they clearly operate much more on a basis of trust, it’s quite refreshing and certainly not my usual experience. There is a lot of other nice clauses in the terms, like being covered if I have to enter territorial waters outside those defined in the policy to seek refuge, being covered beyond the renewal date if I’m at sea, it feels like I’ve found an insurance company that actually understands sailing!!

In the end I managed to secure insurance with Velos, very reputable company, also got a nice discount for being a member of the OCC