Marinaut 215 insurance

RoseDoctor

New member
I Just purchased a Marinaut 215 and am seeking insurance coverage.
I live in the Stae of Washington.
Any suggestions or recommendations from your Marinaut owners?
Gary
 
Greg,
Thanks you for your response.
I applied to Progressive through USAA also.
A month after I bought my policy they informed me by mail that they could not cover my comprehensive and collision (physical damage or theft) because my boat had a Washington hull ID number. But they could cover me for liability. I called them about it and and the rep said their underwriters were "not comfortable" with a Washington HID.
Have you, or anyone, ever heard of that?
Do you know what it means?
Gary
 
I have a CD22 covered under Progressive. I live in VA. There never was any discussion about a "WA HID" number. It was pretty painless to get insurance. Same thing with my two previous boats also covered by Progressive (and one of those was from France). The hull number is a requirement of the US Government not WA state.

Maybe they are referring to the WA state registration number. I would ask them what makes them uncomfortable about it. A registration number can be from any state regardless of the HID.

I got my insurance through the Progressive website. You might try there, although you may already have a black mark by your name.

Maybe the problem is that there a very few Marinauts out there and they can't judge the risk so they are bailing on you.

Insurance companies can play be some lousy rules. In the past there have been people whose auto insurance was cancelled out of the blue. They call and say "I been a customer for many,many years and never had an accident, so why are you cancelling my coverage?" The answer from the insurance company is "You haven't had an accident for a long time, so you're probably due for one and that makes you too high of a risk."
 
Well Right, There are only a few Marinaut in Washington state, or anywhere for that matter. There have not been that many built at all.

It might be that the issue is that they (insurance co or you) supplied the WA registration number in place of the HID (Hull Identification Number). The WA reg number is applied by the owner, with a colored 3" x 3" sticker, placed on the bow, forward quarter, forward of midship, placed on each side of the vessel. There is a new sticker added each year, supplied with the new registration papers. The HID# is stamped into the hull, either on a plaque or stamped into the vessels hull material. It is found on the transom starboard side and one other place on the vessel. The HID will give info on manufacture date, size and Mfg's ID code.

Seems like there is some confusion as to what numbers are for what. I would go back to the insurance company and as for a manager or supervisor to get it cleared up.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Progressive sounds like a good option. You might also try Amica, that's who our insurance is through, they seem to underwrite anything, mainly because they have little experience with boats and are more familiar with cars and houses. But they are pretty good to work with customer service wise and with claims.

Regarding the WA HID number, I think that's used when boats don't have a manufacturer-stamped HIN, for example, with home-built or kit boats. I once had a restored 1956 Bell Boy, and back in '56 there were no HINs stamped into the fiberglass, so at some point along the way a small green WA State HIN sticker was added to the transom, where the manufacturer stamp usually goes on newer boats, to assign it a number that ties to the title. Perhaps Marinaut, because it is so small/new, uses these same kind of WA HIN numbers as with home-built boats and for some reason the underwriters did not like that?

BTW, I loved re-reading these old threads on the Marinaut, what a great looking boat. Congrats on your purchase!

-Mike
 
I'd agree with a couple others above, in that (if you are still considering Progressive), I'd call back and square away what numbers they are talking about. A "HIN" is the official hull ID number; like a VIN on a car. The boat was built in Washington, but that doesn't really have anything to do with anything. It's a US built boat, so which state it was built in should be meaningless (and thousands of boats are built in Washington). Your HIN should be on the starboard upper/outer transom.

Then your state registration number will simply be the state of principal use (which may or may not be your state of residency). There it's possible for insurance companies to not want to insure a specific location within a state (for example, I had a "keep the boat at" address once that was in a hurricane area, and they had an issue with just that small area). But a state in general - especially one as popular for boating as Washington? Somewhat hard to imagine.

Even the phrasing seems a bit off. "Not comfortable with"? What is this, a feelings session? Or are they going to sell you insurance. Geez.

Anyway, given that many people are happy with their Progressive boat insurance (including numerous C-Dorys that were built, registered in, and used in Washington), you may want to try again and make sure you're all on the same page, numbers-wise.

Sunbeam

PS: The HIN follows a specific convention. The first three characters will be letters, which will be the ID that Marinaut boats uses (for example, a C-Dory might be CDO, or DOR, or etc. depending on the builder at that time). The next two digits will be a model identifier (say, 22 in my case). The following three will be a hull number, like say 008 if you have the eight Marinaut 21 built, and then the last four are a set that indicate the month and year the hull was laid (first two of the four with the month being a letter) and the model year of the boat (last two of the four). So if your hull was laid in October of 2014 and your boat is a 2015 model year, the last four digits of your HIN would be J415, or October (letter J in sequence with January being A), 2014, 2015 model year.
 
You C-Brat folks are absolutely fantastic!
Thank you so much for your prompt and useful responses.
I will check out your suggestions tomorrow.

I must admit to a typo in my earlier post. I said HID, when I meant HIN.
I hope that didn't cause too much confusion.

My boat certainly isn't a kit boat or home built boat. I gave the progressive
people the Marinaut Boat website, which shows their boats under construction. But to no avail. Seems strange.

I do have a WA registration, which is posted on the bow on both sides. I'll go down to the marina tomorrow and see if can can find the hull number. My Bill of Sale lists the Hull Number as WNZ3005FC010. That is the number I gave to Progressive that they didn't like.

I've also put in a call to E.Q. Harbor, where the boat was built, to see if they know what is going on.

I'll keep you all posted on what I learn.
Again, Thank you so much!!!
 
RoseDoctor":122f4nge said:
My Bill of Sale lists the Hull Number as WNZ3005FC010. That is the number I gave to Progressive that they didn't like.

Out of curiosity, I looked up that number on a site where you can search the various manufacturer's IDs (called the MIC, and is the first three letters of a HIN). If WNZ is the the first three digits, then I can see where there might be a "displeasure" on their part. Reason I say that is that "WNZ" comes up as a catch-all identification for "Washington Home Made boats." Here is a screen shot:

HIN_WNZ.png

I looked it up here:

http://www.uscgboating.org/content/manu ... cation.php

Not that there is anything wrong with home made boats, but you know how it is, they are not as "known" to insurance companies, etc.

As someone asked you in the other Marinaut thread, did you by any chance buy the original Marinaut 21 that EQ was using as a demo boat? If so, I think that one may have been made by (Dave? maybe user name OldGrowth here?) who first got the Marinaut going. I don't really know though, so don't take this as gospel.

If so, I had the good fortune of spending three weeks on Powell in that boat, and it's a beaut. I called it the Magic Carpet because it went through the water so nicely :D
 
Sunbeam is right, the original was built by "OldGrowth Dave" and one of the
Tolands, (Ben I believe), before the boat went into production. There is considerable info in a long thread that was going as that boat began.

Here is a picture of Dave, on a demo run in Sequim Bay.

1_10_2012_from_Canon_091.sized.jpg

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

0_CD_Cover_SlpyC_with_Classics_MBSP_2009_288.thumb.jpg
 
I already posted this to the "insurance" thread that was mentioned above, but with several here speaking of USAA, I will post this here also.
USAA screwed me over (along with an engineering firm involved in my case) and because of that I found American Family, headquartered nearby in Madison, WI, was a better bargain. (Long story about USAA, but short of it was they refused to pay out on a ceiling collapse, and then went on to refuse payment to an engineering firm they hired to investigate the incident. Initially USAA was more interested in getting square footage measurements of the house rather than damage information. They hired a third party examiner that came out and basically did nothing, but then they accused the engineer of doing nothing, when he is the on that did the investigation and provided them with a report. Most of USAA's work is with third parties. I will never have anything to do with USAA again, and suggest anyone else forget about using them, or at the very least compare rates with other insurers. FWIW, my issue with them happened a year or so after they had to make some huge hurricane payouts and with a change of CEO's, so perhaps they were just denying claims to save themselves money...)
While I currently am happy with American Family, I did have Progressive for a while on a previous Motorhome. While I was happy with their Customer Service, I don't remember making any claims with them, so can't speak to that. Colby
Colby
 
You are absolutely right - we did buy the first Marinaut 215 built by (I believe) Dave Toland. Since then they have built several more according to their Facebook Page. All are wonderful boats.
We had the pleasure of riding on Michael Donath's M 215 last year when he had it on Bud Bay here in Olympia. We were so impressed with it that we then made the decision to approach EQ to purchase their demonstrator (the boat shown in the photo above). We made quite a few additions to it including nav. system, motor upgrade (Suzuki 115 4-stroke), roof top racks, canvas, power windlass, autopilot etc, etc.

So it now appears, from the information you all have kindly provided, that I need to find an insurance company that will insure a boat that was a first of its kind and go from there.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on companies I might try?
BoatUS? or the two listed in the posts above?

Gary

Another question: I would like to put the Marinaut 215 in my profile, but the profile list contains only C-Dorys. Is there a way to contact the webmaster to have the Marinaut listed?
 
I use the same company that insures my house. By combining all my cars,boats, homes under one policy I was able to save a lot of money. I use american family and they will insure anything.
 
Well congrats! :gift What a great boat -- and with the new Suzuki, even better.

Welcome aboard the forum :D

Presuming no-one here minds a few pictures of a cool boat, here are a few of your Seeker on Powell a few years ago. Maybe you will head that way with her sometime?

(I lowered the resolution for uploading here.)

IMG_3909_2.sized.jpg

IMG_3938_2.sized.jpg

IMG_3962.sized.jpg

IMG_4040.sized.jpg

IMG_4175.sized.jpg
 
Sunbeam":3qh81r10 said:
RoseDoctor":3qh81r10 said:
My Bill of Sale lists the Hull Number as WNZ3005FC010. That is the number I gave to Progressive that they didn't like.

Out of curiosity, I looked up that number on a site where you can search the various manufacturer's IDs (called the MIC, and is the first three letters of a HIN). If WNZ is the the first three digits, then I can see where there might be a "displeasure" on their part. Reason I say that is that "WNZ" comes up as a catch-all identification for "Washington Home Made boats." Here is a screen shot:

HIN_WNZ.png

I looked it up here:

http://www.uscgboating.org/content/manu ... cation.php

Not that there is anything wrong with home made boats, but you know how it is, they are not as "known" to insurance companies, etc.

As someone asked you in the other Marinaut thread, did you by any chance buy the original Marinaut 21 that EQ was using as a demo boat? If so, I think that one may have been made by (Dave? maybe user name OldGrowth here?) who first got the Marinaut going. I don't really know though, so don't take this as gospel.

If so, I had the good fortune of spending three weeks on Powell in that boat, and it's a beaut. I called it the Magic Carpet because it went through the water so nicely :D

Good detective work Sunbeam!
 
Sunbeam,

WOW! Those photos made my day :D
Stan, the rigger who worked on Seeker for us, told me that she had been down to lake Powell and the lake charts are still in the Garmin plotter. (I may not be using them for a while).

I'm going to start looking for insurance and will keep you posted.

Can't tell you how much I appreciate your help and how impressed I am with C-Brats.

PS - Does anyone happen to know how I can contact the webmaster to get Marinaut 215 added to their profile list?

Gary
 
Now that we know that the boat does not have the HIN prefix of "MRB", which is the proper one for the production Marinaut, you will need to explain to each insurance company that this is the original boat, and that it was given the WNZ HIN prefix because of this. Explain the boat is built to the same standards as the current production boat. You may also have to get a marine surveyor to certify this. This is where a good marine broken becomes worthwhile!

I have been using progressive for over 15 years, and had a good experience. I use a broker who handles many marine insurance companies for yachts all over the World. This may help. I have had excellent service, no questions asked when I have had a claim. They also seem to recognize that since I have two boats, I cannot be using both at a time, and don't gouge me on the premium--the second boat is only a few more dollars than the single boat. The broker also upgraded the agreed value of the boat, as I put improvements aboard.

USAA no longer insures boats--they sub it out--and for that reason better to use a marine broker.

RoseDoctor, your boat is registered in the "our C Dory" section--Hopefully TyBoo or DaNag will take up your request about a specific name for the Marinuat..
 
RoseDoctor, your boat is registered in the "our C Dory" section--Hopefully TyBoo or DaNag will take up your request about a specific name for the Marinuat..[/quote]

Do you know how I can contact TyBoo or DaNag to request them to do this?
Or do they just sort of do it automatically?
Gary
 
RoseDoctor":3aipgr1m said:
Sunbeam,

WOW! Those photos made my day :D
Stan, the rigger who worked on Seeker for us, told me that she had been down to lake Powell and the lake charts are still in the Garmin plotter. (I may not be using them for a while).

I'm so glad! I hesitated over whether to post them because I didn't want to steal the thunder from your new boat. Happy I added to it instead :thup

Combination of your sweet boat, the right water level, and a very capable helmsman (which was not me on those stretches) brought Seeker up to the head of some very skinny canyons. I stood on either the fordeck or stern (depending on whether we were in forward or reverse) with a long pole held horizontally (like a tightrope walker's) to hold us off and help steer the other end. No scrapes :mrgreen: This is one of the fun things about a boat like a C-Dory or your Marinaut.

I like Thataway's idea of using an agent who is familiar with boats if you can't easily get Progressive to "feel comfortable" with it on your own.

A few more - who can resist :D

canyon.sized.jpg

chart.sized.jpg

canyon_2.sized.jpg

shore_tie.sized.jpg
 
Rosedoctor said:

"PS - Does anyone happen to know how I can contact the webmaster to get Marinaut 215 added to their profile list?

Gary"

Gary, go to the "memberlist" button at the top of the page just under the Logo banner. Slick on 'Memberlist" and the top of the list # 2 and #3 are TyBoo and DaNag respectively. Left of there names is a "PM" button, click on that and you will get a dialog box to type in what you want. Don't forget to put something in the subject box at the top of the form. They will get your PM and get back to you (usually) via the PM route.

When you open C-BRATS site, watch in the upper left under the ad box and you will get a "1 New Message" notice when you get a reply.

Hope that helps.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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