Catch 22

Wow, it’s been just over 3 weeks since I’ve posted! You could infer that it’s because I’ve been busy enjoying myself, and I have been. The truth, however, is that I haven’t been “feeling the blog.” I promise a blog focused on the fun we’ve been having, but right now I need to vent.

Our insurance company, Geico/BoatUS, is dropping Caribbean coverage. I get it; it’s becoming a more risky market during hurricane season, which is 6 months of the year. They came into that market late and it’s not really their gig. What I don’t like is how they essentially left us in the lurch. 

Our policy cycle is April 13 of one year through April 12 of the next year. We get our renewal notice via email during the first week of March, and each year since we started in 2019, the policy with the rider has automatically renewed. I suppose we should have seen the writing on the wall since they’ve been dropping boats over the past year, especially sailboats, which they seem to consider more problematic. Maybe it’s that big stick they have sticking up out of their middles (that would be the mast). At any rate, we got our renewal notice on Thursday, March 7. Only this time, it stated that they would be dropping Caribbean coverage. We could use the boat in mainland US and Canadian waters, and could call and request a “visitation extension” for the Bahamas and Caribbean for up to 120 days, but not for the period of June 1-November 30 (the entirety of hurricane season, for their purposes). For that, we had to call. Okay, Dave called. He told them we were in the BVI and asked for the visitation extension and told them we would seek an alternate plan for hurricane season. The following day, Dave had an email response. Not only would they not grant the visitation extension, they also told us that we weren’t even covered for the final month of our policy because we had left US waters without permission. Say what?!

I’ll cover that last point first. According to the NH Amendments page of our current policy, which is good through April 12 of this year, they can’t just cut us off like that, except for nonpayment. It took a couple of phone calls and emails to get them to admit that, but they finally did. So we are covered through that date. That gave us just over a month to find a new policy. 

Now for the part about not granting us the visitation extension. First, I should tell you that we started this policy in 2019 or 2020 and even purchased the rider that allows us to be in the Bahamas or Caribbean at any time of the year, without prior notification and with no restrictions other than excluding a few locations we’ve never visited. Each year since we started the policy it has renewed in its entirety, rider included, without our having to do anything except make sure they had the correct payment information for our automatic renewal payment. Now back to their refusal to grant the visitation extension.

They said they wouldn’t grant said extension because we’d left mainland US waters without notifying them ahead of time. Hmmm…..that little gem isn’t in our current policy document, not on any of the 20+ pages, which, I assure you, we reread thoroughly. More emails and phone calls. They were reading from the renewal policy, which wouldn’t go into effect until April 13. So….you won’t grant the visitation extension because we didn’t do something our current policy doesn’t require us to do? Starting to see the catch-22 here? They even gave examples of how “prior notice” might occur. We could have notified them prior to departing for the Caribbean, or when Caribbean coverage was added to the prior term and with a request to extend into the renewal. Hello, Geico/BoatUS, neither of those are part of our current policy and we’re not mind readers. Perhaps you should have told us about this after we renewed last year. On top of that, in a way we actually did notify them of our intent to remain in the Caribbean when, last spring, we asked for and were granted the relevant paperwork to store our boat in Puerto Rico for hurricane season. You know, an island in the Caribbean. 

Then there was this little tidbit at the end of the same email. They could grant an extension in the event of “extenuating circumstances beyond our control.” Really, Geico/BoatUS, you don’t see this? You CREATED an extenuating circumstance beyond our control. We know you won’t cover us past May 31, but at least give us until then so we have enough time to find a replacement policy! This is what happens when bean counters make decisions. 🙄

The griping part is over. We clearly are not going to get anywhere by appealing to Geico/BoatUS’s better nature. We will bring this to the attention of whichever entity monitors and regulates what insurance companies can and can’t do. Based on our interpretation of the NH Amendments to our policy, we think they’re in the wrong, but we’re not experts. 

Where does this leave us? We have asked our boating friends for referrals to the insurance companies they use and have sent out several requests for quotes. We’ve received some ballpark quotes, but before any quote can be finalized, we need to schedule a survey of our boat. The survey requires that our boat be hauled out of the water, so we have to coordinate a surveyor’s schedule with a boat yard’s schedule. We’re working on that. Hopefully we have it all taken care of before our current policy expires. 

Like I said at the beginning of this post, next time I’ll write about something fun that we’ve done. Maybe it will have something to do with the picture at the top of this post. 😉 Until then, please keep your fingers crossed for us, stay safe, and take care of each other!