In court and on the high seas, you are in God's hands, as the saying goes. Just as the imponderables at sea can be relativised by an experienced skipper, a lawyer with relevant experience knows how to take some of the uncertainty out of a legal dispute. The risk of losing all or part of a lawsuit and possibly having to bear some of the costs remains.
It's good if the risk of legal costs and out-of-court costs are covered by legal expenses insurance.
Unfortunately, most legal expenses insurance policies have excluded certain risks relevant to boat owners and water sports enthusiasts since 1995, which many policyholders are not aware of. This mainly affects motorised vehicles, but not only pure motorboats, but also motor sailers and sailing boats with a built-in engine or outboard motor under certain circumstances.
The general legal protection conditions of most companies contain formulations such as:
"The insurance cover does not include the defence of legal interests as the owner, keeper, purchaser, hirer, lessee and driver of a motor vehicle on land, on water or in the air or of a trailer."
While risks relating to land vehicles are usually covered by additional modules (motor legal protection), watercraft very often remain uninsured. Many insurers also offer special supplementary packages for these risks, but insurance agents and brokers rarely refer to them because they are much less common. You should therefore expressly enquire about the possibilities of such supplementary insurance! There are also special insurances such as the well-known skipper insurances or skipper supplementary insurances. However, it should be noted that skipper's legal expenses insurance generally only covers risks arising from the operation of the watercraft, not from ownership, purchase, owner's liability, etc.
Unfortunately, not every risk is covered, even if you take out an often cost-intensive supplementary insurance policy for water sports (boat legal protection, etc.). Contractual claims are almost always excluded here, for example from the purchase contract warranty. With reference to these clauses, some companies are also happy to (initially) refuse cover for claims that are also, but not exclusively, based on contracts, for example damage to a charter boat caused by the charterer.
What almost all legal expenses insurance policies have in common is that legal expenses cover is only granted for the assertion of own damages, but not for the defence against claims for damages.
Boat owners, keepers and users are advised to check their legal protection insurance policies carefully for the insured risks and, if necessary, to have the scope of cover confirmed in writing by the insurance company. Old contracts concluded before 1995 may also have been amended by supplementary agreements (e.g. in the course of agreeing a different tariff).
In our experience, certain companies often refuse cover in the event of a claim, even though the costs would have to be covered under the insurance contract. In many cases, however, it is possible to get the costs covered with a little argumentation.
