Insuring multi-million dollar luxury yachts – some with helicopters on board – is complicated niche work for brokers. But the packages involved to provide coverage is a “fun” business, says one west coast brokerage president.
Sean Thompson, president of Dolphin Insurance Services, a niche marine brokerage in Burnaby, BC, said there’s more business selling insurance for megayachts than you might expect.
“It’s really interesting,” he remarked. “With our location, globally, obviously we’re not going to be seeing what they would see in Monaco or Fort Lauderdale – that’s the Mecca, that’s where they [megayachts] all are – but with the internet and social media, people are now seeing how beautiful this coast is for cruising.
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“Yeah, we don’t offer maybe the weather you would find in Spain and such, but we’re getting way more people with big money coming to explore our coast – and if you’ve got big money, you get a big boat. We’re seeing larger yachts.”
Dolphin insures a lot of Canadians with megayachts, both in Canada and based in overseas ports, such as those in the Mediterranean. A lot of Asian money is fuelling the luxury boat trade in Canada. And, increasingly, Americans are docking their boats in British Columbia too, Thompson said.
In Victoria, BC, in recent months, a luxury megayacht marina has finished construction. The marina offers slips for boats between 20 and 46 metres in length. With the big money boats come complicated, unique insurance coverages, Thompson said.
“The big difference in megayacht coverage is you get into a lot of different types of coverage – not just the wider cruising area, but you start offering fine art coverages, valuable articles aboard the boat, crew coverages like crew medical and crew liability,” he noted. “It starts to get a bit more complicated, for sure.
“And then all their toys: they’ve got jet-skis, they’ve got sea-doos, they wanted to add a helicopter. It starts to get complicated, but it’s fun. You’re putting together a package, it’s not just a quick application to an underwriter and you get a quote. You’ve got to look at all aspects of risk for these high net-worth owners.”
At the end of the day, Thompson said, for owners of megayachts, it’s the same deal as it is for owners of 30-foot daytrip yachts – they’re bigger and more expensive, but the boats are “their babies”.
“They want to deal with someone who can speak their language and who can say, don’t worry, whatever happens we’ll look after your boat,” he said.
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