Wanted to start a new thread from when I posted about my boat getting totaled two weeks ago. The process has been very humbling and have learned a lot about how the insurance valued the boat. My intent of this post is to speak to my experience and lessons learned. Understand we all use different companies and they all do things a little differently. I’m gonna try to keep this short but even in short gonna be long. Read if you want to learn what may help you if something like this ever happens.
At this point the insurance adjuster and I have agreed on a loss figure amount on all aspects on my claim and it is getting final approvals. At first I felt like the adjuster was going to try to lowball stuff from initial conversations. They never did but fought to get valuations up. Know what you had and keep documentation it only helps.
First lesson learned know your policy and have a good agent. I had 20k endorsement on my policy for fishing equipment and personal effects. This covers my poles, TM, upgraded equipment not on the boat from factory, rods, tackle etc. The adjuster said I only had 2k in coverages. Long story short during a agency transfer from moving states in 2020 they accidentally dropped a zero on the coverage. Thought I was gonna be screwed. Went and talked to agent he found the mistake and did a referendum to the policy. Agent said it must of been a computer error when he transferred it. The next item is my insurance company valued the trailer as “watercraft equipment”. I had just the generic coverage for this item as everything was put to fishing equipment and personal effects. My agent told the adjuster to figure how much was needed where for every aspect of items lost and he the. Moved the dollars around from my 20k endorsement so each coverage type had enough dollars on it to cover the items that fell to it.
It pays to have good insurance and agent in a case like this.
Now to the boat and motor coverage. It was insured for market value. The insurance company used a third party to find purchases of same model boat in the previous month. They found 2 comps. They the. Deducted trailer and accessories to get it to just boat and motor. This value came in really low. When adjuster and I spoke he agreed. The comp boats had 400 plus hours and mine had 180. Comp company could not take that into consideration because they had no hours record of this boats and had to assume all was average. They also had to assume the comp boats had standard factory options with no factory upgrades.
the adjuster and I had put together a list of all factory upgrades I had on the boat and what they cost. After all these were added in he made the comp company up the condition to the to the next level above the comps after comparing photos of the comps and my rig prior to accedient. This raised the valuation of my boat and motor by 8k which got it to a fair value the adjuster and I agreed on.
The final part of this was my fishing equipment. We scoured the internet for used poles with no luck. Poles were six years old but agreed to pay out new pricing minus small % of depreciation since I had records of pumps getting rebuilt and replacement and maintain regular of bushings etc. he agreed they were maintained in a like new state.
Electronics, I had 2 carbon 12’s with 3D structure scan. On this item is where I built some trust with the adjuster and showed him I was trying to get back whatI had and not just take the claim for all it was worth. I showed him some used prices I found on carbon 12’s and refurbished prices from lowrance as well as the new pricing for 12 lives. He paid out the refurbished pricing on each graph minus small amount of depreciation.
Build trust with your adjuster and show them your trying to be reasonable and not just take. Know your agent and know how and where every item on your rig is being covered including the trailer. Know the cost and all the factory upgrades equipment above standard options on your rig. The last thing to know is be patient. It has been a process. I hope some of you find this info valuable and that’s why I’m sharing. Hopefully I will be back on the water with you all soon.
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Originally Posted by Bassin Bob71
, (2 wrecks on road, one garage fire)and what you went through is common. I had Allstate for all 3, and after some haggling back & forth, they handled it well.
