Insurance: Update sum insured due to market situation?

[Krumelur]

When I bought my Bav 40 last year I paid €75k. Meanwhile I have invested another €10k into the boat and checking prices on Boat24.com and Boot24.com returns price tags of up to €150k for a boat of same age.

My insurance told me I can increase up to around 50% of the original sum without a new survey. Given the current market situation, I'd see my boat in the 90k to 100k€ area.

Are you (regularly) adjusting your sum insured to match the market price and to reflect changes made to equipment?

[Yngmar]

Then the contribution goes up! So unless you're expecting total loss as likely outcome, I'm thinking no.

[Krumelur]

That's of course true. May I ask about your specific situation? Have you changed the sum (ever)?

For reference: To go 10k up the contribution increases by €100 per year (I'm currently paying around 1,000).

[symphony2]

Surprised at allowing 50% uplift - 10% is normal here without a strong justification. I am going through this now with my project boat, which is already insured for more than I paid on the basis of a surveyors valuation. I am spending more than the purchase price on the refit and when it is finished I will submit the bills and a final survey inspection to support an increase to the top market valuation.

With my Bavaria 33 I insured for the new price of £105k in 2015 and thought of reducing it last year until prices went mad - I sold it for a little under that value so good decision to keep it the same.

Is it worth increasing it? Yes for 2 reasons. First it is cheap. The premium for all risk element on these sorts of values is around 0.3-0.4% - so an extra £10k costs around £35 per annum. Second if your insurance is agreed value (and not market value) you know what you will get if the boat is a write off, and perhaps more important a higher value means a higher limit for repairs before they consider a write off. With the cost of repairs rising probably faster than boat values this is an important consideration.

Insurance is not really about risk, which for cruising boats is extremely small, but about how you view the consequences.

[Krumelur]

Thanks symphony2. I increased by 20k to €95.000 and it costs me €200 per year more and let's me sleep better :-)