Marine Cargo Insurance

[arthurj]

Hello. Has anyone got any recommendations for Marine Cargo Insurance? I'm getting quotes from £150-£450 to ship a Vellfire and it seems a bit of a minefield.

 

How do you check that these insurers are backed properly? Has anyone here ever needed to make a claim? Any horror stories?

[arthurj]

Thought I'd post my notes here as it may be useful to people in future. I won't post contact details, but it's all easily found on the web.

 

This is for shipping a 2012 (just under 10 years old) from Japan to the UK. Ro-Ro shipping (drive-on/drive-off). Total loss and General Average (if they decide to sacrifice some cargo to save the ship or the rest of the cargo) is covered at a minimum.

 

Charterhouse Limited

Quote: £127

This broker claim to specialise in transporting classic cars. They were very fast to respond and seemed knowledgable. I didn't buy at auction so I didn't have an auction report, but they were happy to accept the detailed video inspection the agent in Japan made for me. I went with this quote in the end, not just because it was cheapest but because the coverage seemed more tailored to shipping an individual car. My quote was underwritten by Lloyds. I haven't needed to claim (yet!) so no idea what they're like to deal with at that end.

 

Clegg Gifford

Quote: £350

This broker said they will not cover vehicles older than 10 years old, so I had to find the manufacturing date to get them to consider me. There were some other hoops to jump through as I didn't have an auction report, and eventually got stuck on the Japanese registration not being in my name (and no UK reg, obviously). I think I would have been able to source documentation that would have satisfied them but had already gone with Charterhouse by that point.

 

Breathe Insurance

Quote: £273

Quite quick to respond. Gave me a detailed insurance quote underwritten by Aviva. Reading the small print I noticed that insurance didn't cover the car when under its own power. As the car has to be driven on and off the ship by the shipping company, I left it at that!

 

Marine Insurance2day

Quote: £267

Again, needed to be persuaded that the car was less than 10 years old as they will not cover older cars. The quote was covered by Aviva, but didn't have the same exclusion clause as the one from Breathe.

 

The Insurance Broker

Quote: £288

Had the exclusion about being driven under own power except for when being driven on or off the boat. This would include door-to-door insurance if necessary, but I didn't need it. However it did exclude pretty much every type of minor damage or theft I could think of, basically the car would have to be written off for me to claim.

 

 

Everyone I spoke to was very polite and helpful, but some seemed more at ease dealing with this than others, and some were not able to insure for various reasons. My feeling was that most of them are used to dealing with import companies shipping a bunch of cars, rather than individuals. Hope this helps someone if they're ever in this position.