Kategorie: News
Compensation through household contents insurance?
It sounds like a nightmare - and it feels like one too: a fire breaks out on the boat and your personal belongings are destroyed. Of course, the most important thing is that nobody is harmed and that everyone involved survives the drama.
Editor's note: The information in the article is valid for Germany. The validity for other countries (except Austria and Switzerland - see below in the article) is not shown here.
Report by Gerald Liebeck
When you land back home after such bad experiences, an important question arises for many: will your belongings be replaced by insurance? There are a number of ways to insure your diving gear, photographic equipment and electronics against various risks.
In this article, however, we would like to focus on an area that is often misjudged:
Damage resulting from a fire on a (Liveaboard) vessel.
The author of this article was himself affected by a fire in 2016, resulting in a total loss and the destruction of everything, and would like to share his experiences. This is specifically about the cause fire, which destroys your own belongings or causes them to be lost beyond repair.
In the case of household contents insurance, the following questions must be clarified in order to receive compensation:
1. insured risk
2. insured items
3. place of insurance
4. sum insured
Let's stay with the example:
1. the usual insured perils in household contents insurance are usually: fire, fire, explosion / storm, hail / burglary, robbery and water damage.
2 Insured items are "all items used in the household for use and consumption".
3. the place of insurance is generally the home or the property. However, these items are also insured if they are "temporarily" outside the home (i.e. with the intention of not storing them permanently outside, but only "temporarily"). This period is defined in the insurance terms and conditions, usually a period of up to 6 months is considered temporary. In the case of a diving trip, we are usually well within this period.
4 In a household contents insurance policy, a fixed sum insured, i.e. a maximum compensation, is usually stipulated in the contract. A sensible sum - also in order to agree the so-called "underinsurance waiver" - is €650 per square metre of living space. For a living space of 100 square metres, the sum insured would therefore be €65,000, which is the maximum compensation for major or total losses. However, this only applies to damage at the insured location itself! If, as described above, the property is temporarily located outside this location (= external insurance), the maximum compensation is usually limited to a percentage (usually 10%-30%). Depending on the provider, however, this sum can also be increased.
"At the time, we had buddies who had household contents insurance, but with a low sum insured of €20,000 and 10% external insurance. Due to this contractual limitation, compensation could only be paid in the amount of €2000, even though the damage was significantly higher. It is therefore advisable to check your own household contents insurance for these figures and adjust it accordingly. In our case, the damage per person was around €6,000 (pure scuba divers, no particularly expensive technical or photographic equipment)."
Further important information on household contents insurance
Compensation for new value: there is often a misconception that "old items" are not paid for in full. Wrong, household contents insurance offers compensation for new value: Replacement value of the same type and quality as new value at the time of loss!
Liability / recourse: In the video (Taucher.Net Talk about the fire on the M/Y Sea Legend) and in our own Liveaboard accident at that time: especially outside the EU, e.g. in Egypt, it is very unlikely that anyone can be held liable. Often there is no insurance from the providers and you can basically forget about claiming compensation from Germany. I often hear "the insurance company won't pay anyway because someone caused the damage and so they refuse to pay compensation". This is clearly not the case: the household contents insurance must settle the damage if it is insured in accordance with the conditions. The possibility of taking recourse is then transferred to the insurer. Otherwise, the insurance company could always say "We suspect that someone is to blame for the damage and will not pay out until this has been clarified." Of course, no benefits are paid if the policyholder is at fault!
Of course, this is not comprehensive cover against all conceivable causes of damage. But anyone can cover the risk of damage caused by fire with little effort via household contents insurance.
Damage without fire
But what happens if there is no fire? The boat is damaged for other reasons and all the belongings are lost?
In this case, household contents insurance does not apply! Because the "sinking of a boat" is simply not one of the above-mentioned "insured risks".
And if, fortunately, there is a less dramatic loss, e.g. due to theft from the cabin? This is a difficult issue, because although the insured risk in this case is burglary, there are clear definitions that must be met:
"Burglary occurs when the thief breaks into a room in a building..."
or
"Breaking open a container in a room of a building"
A boat/vessel is not a room of a building and therefore this case is not insured. There are only a few providers who now define boat cabins as rooms in their terms and conditions. Especially as other points also play a role in the event of burglary, e.g. proof that "an obstacle has been overcome", i.e. a lock has been broken or that certain minimum requirements for the quality of the lock must be met.
Conclusion:
We divers can insure ourselves properly against damage caused by fire with little effort and adaptation of the contract. Unfortunately, the situation is different for all other causes of damage: here it would be advisable - especially in the case of particularly high-quality equipment - to seek advice from specialised providers and take out tailor-made insurance.
(See also: www.fotofairsicherung.de/ or www.tauch.versicherung/ )
To the author:
Gerald Liebeck
Financial counselling Matthias Hanig
Specialised in property insurance
gl@matthiashanig.de
Source (quotes insurance conditions): General Household Insurance Conditions (model conditions) of the GDV = German Insurance Association
Further information:
The information in the article is valid for Germany. It seems to be very similar in Austria. There, however, private liability insurance is usually included in the contract (see link below). In Switzerland, a buddy's claim was settled without any problems as described here, so it should be very similar for Switzerland.
For Austria:
https://www.allianz.at/de_AT/blog/wohnen-recht/was-ist-eine-hausratversicherung.html
The fire-disaster of the author's liveaboard vessel (2016)
youTube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsnSSvQuV1E