GEICO BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team responds after Hurricane Sally devastation

Most boat damage due to lack of preparation

Submitted
Posted 10/7/20

While Hurricane Sally’s slow pace may have delivered four months of rain in four hours , the GEICO BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team is finding that the Category 2 hurricane’s …

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GEICO BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team responds after Hurricane Sally devastation

Most boat damage due to lack of preparation

Posted

While Hurricane Sally’s slow pace may have delivered four months of rain in four hours, the GEICO BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Team is finding that the Category 2 hurricane’s sudden shift to the east just before the storm’s Sept. 16 landfall caught many boaters unprepared.

“Boats that were homeported in Orange Beach, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, took the brunt of the damage,” said GEICO BoatUS Marine Insurance Catastrophe Field Team Supervisor Grant Beach. “Our challenge is locating vessels that may have traveled some distance or locating what is left of the boats.” The Catastrophe Team, made up of marine surveyors and salvage experts from across the country, along with local crane, barge and trucking firms, and local TowBoatUS towing companies, expects to remain active in the region for several more weeks.

Is there a takeaway for boaters? “Even with significantly better forecasting over the years, we learned that Mother Nature can still surprise,” said Beach. “Nearly all of the vessels we are recovering don’t show any signs of basic storm preparation, such as the use of double lines, chafe protection or other damage avoidance measures.”

While having a good insurance policy with full salvage and wreck removal coverage is a boat owner’s last backstop, he or she needs to consider making storm preparation efforts, even if the boat is not directly in the forecast’s "cone of uncertainty," which only looks at the predicted path of the center of the storm. According to NOAA, the entire track of the tropical cyclone can be expected to remain within the cone roughly 60% to 70% of the time.

“Clearly, Hurricane Sally was the outlier,” added Beach.

For more information on boat insurance or to get a free quote, go to BoatUS.com/Insurance.

About Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS):

Celebrating more than 50 years, BoatUS is the nation’s largest organization of recreational boaters with more than 700,000 members. We are the boat owners’ voice on Capitol Hill and fight for their rights. We are The Boat Owners Auto Club and help ensure a roadside trailer breakdown does not end a boating or fishing trip before it begins. When boats break down on the water, TowBoatUS brings them safely back to the launch ramp or dock, 24/7. BoatUS offers GEICO Marine Insurance policies that give boat owners affordable, specialized coverage and superior service they need. We help keep boaters safe and our waters clean with assistance from the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water. Visit BoatUS.com.