Charter boat insurance, starting with who controls the boat.
A charter policy has to match the arrangement: who owns the vessel, who operates the business, who provides the captain and who is aboard as a passenger. This page is for owners and operators of crewed charters.
Offering the boat without crew is a bareboat charter, Rise’s leading line; it has its own page: bareboat charter insurance. Tours, fishing trips and rentals: Commercial Use Coverage. Captains working for several owners: Boat Crew Coverage.
When you provide the captain and crew, you take on more of the operation.
Supplying the people who run the vessel brings three questions. Who contracts with the guests: the owner, the business that sells the trip or a manager; the policy should name whoever does. Who employs the captain and crew: paid-crew injury questions need specialist review and are on Boat Crew Coverage. How many guests are passengers: with owner-provided crew the federal thresholds are lower than without it, and the passenger rules are explained once, on Bareboat Charter.
Insurers also treat captain approval as an underwriting topic; raise a new captain before the first trip.
The questions we put to a charter proposal.
Questions, not a list of products Rise offers; which of them a proposal answers depends on the insurer and the wording.
- Insured parties. Owner, owning company, operator, manager, captain: who is named, and in what capacity.
- Hull and valuation, and the deductibles. →
- Liability limits, sublimits and defence terms for the actual operation. →
- Water activities. Swimming, snorkelling, tenders and toys. An activity being allowed is not the same as it being insured.
- Pollution and wreck removal. How the terms treat them.
- Contracts and certificates. A marina or venue may ask to be named; a certificate is evidence, not a change to the wording.
The operation sets the price of charter insurance.
We do not quote typical charter premiums; the published benchmarks we found could not be checked. The facts that move a charter price are the ones insurers ask to have disclosed: the charter arrangement, the cruising area, the deductible and the guest count. Captain approval, water activities and the number of vessels are further underwriting topics.
The vessel’s own value and use drivers are on Yacht Insurance. A forty-passenger operation raises different federal passenger questions from a six-guest charter.
Speak with Roberto.
Roberto Guerrero · President and Principal Agent · Licensed agent