We have had several TI's, and we travel a lot all over the country with ours either on the roof or pulled on a trailer. Our insurance agent strongly suggested that we title and register the boat, ( nothing to do with options like massive sail sets and outboards really, besides what you state as the replacement cost). As she explained it, kayaks are stolen all the time (similar to bikes), and are a misdemeaner and typically not recovered, even if found they just go in a big pile (like bikes) at police auctions. Powerboats are a totally different story, if someone had stolen our $80k Sea Ray, ( or any titled boat worth over $5k), would be a felony similar to grand theft auto. And that HID number or the motor serial numbers can never be registered again, and completely tracable nationwide, (if ever found abandoned you get it back).
Makes perfect sense to me, so I always register our TI's/trailers and provide all the information to our car insurance company, ( same as we do with our camper). We had ours valued at around $10k with all the sails, goodies, and twin Honda outboards. Probably a good idea to record the serial numbers on your outboards, Lorance sonar systems, etc, and take video or pics of the whole system. I highly recommend if you go offshore that you get a boat us membership (available at West Marine), (seatow is another one). It's like $125/yr and if you breakdown or get stranded out there, they come get you and your boat, or deliver gas, (without a membership, if you run out of gas the bill will be $300 or more, (just sayin), and a tow can be thousands. Of course you can call the coast guard, they will save you but not your boat, typically they either sink it with their 50 cal or it goes on a salvage list, then licensed salvagers get it (law of the sea), and it can cost you many thousands to get your boat back. Basically it's a mad dash for them to put their sticker on the boat, ( they are all out their trolling). We have used boatus several times, ( they monitor fm channel 16, or you can sometimes reach them via cell, (good idea to store their number on your phone, (the service includes any boat you are on btw, even if it's not yours), since we are divers and offshore a lot, we have used ours on other peoples boats a few times, ( just towing in a 24 footer from a few miles out can be a couple grand (fyi, way more if the salvagers get it). Obviously it a racket, that's why you see all those tow services trolling around all the popular areas, (laying in wait for the next drunk dummy who ran aground (lol, happens a lot here in the gofast boat capital of the world)) Hope this helps FE
|