Towing and on-water assistance

What assistance normally covers

The everyday events: a tow back to the nearest place the boat can be dealt with, a jump start, fuel delivered when you have run out, and a soft ungrounding where the boat can be pulled off without damage.

Cover is generally written either as a limit for each event or as a limit for the season, and the limit is the whole story — a long tow in open water is not a small piece of work.

Some policies cover assistance only when it follows a covered loss, which is a very different thing from covering a breakdown. That distinction is worth reading rather than assuming.

Tow or salvage

A tow is a service you are billed for. A salvage is a maritime claim on a vessel that was in peril, and the compensation for it can be a proportion of the value of the boat and everything aboard.

What separates them is not the equipment used but the circumstances — whether the vessel was in danger and whether the assistance was voluntary. A grounding on a lee shore in rising wind can be a salvage; the same boat aground on soft mud in flat calm generally is not.

This is why what is agreed before a line goes across matters. Where the situation allows it, establish that assistance is being provided as a tow, and get it in writing. A vessel accepting help in genuine peril rarely has that luxury, which is what the hull section is for.

Policy cover or a towing membership

A membership with a towing network is the alternative and the two are not interchangeable.

• A membership generally covers the service directly, with its own terms about distance and what counts as covered
• Policy assistance sits inside the insurance and is subject to the policy's conditions, including navigational limits
• A claim on the policy is still a claim, which a membership call generally is not
• Coverage areas differ, and both are worth checking against where you actually boat rather than where you are based
• Neither generally responds outside the policy's navigational limits or during a lay-up period

Towing on the road is a different policy

Assistance on the water and roadside assistance for the tow vehicle are separate arrangements, and the boat policy's assistance section does not normally cover a breakdown on the way to the ramp.

Liability while towing the trailer generally falls to the auto policy pulling it, and damage to the boat itself while under tow on the road is frequently not covered by that policy.

So a trailered boat needs the road question answered separately from the water question. It is a short conversation and it closes a gap that sits between three policies.