Hey my name is Butch Swank from Goodlad & Swank Insurance. Today I’m going to talk about dock insurance. This will be a short one, there’s not a ton to talk about simply because a ton of home insurance carriers simply have zero coverage for your dock. However there are several that do. There are some that will actually insure at replacement cost, which means if it goes away, you will get paid a certain dollar amount that’s been agreed on in advance to get that thing right back to where it is. You just gotta make sure that it’s valued properly. So discuss it with your agent.
“This dock is my pride and joy. It’s a 150,000 dollar dock. It’s got a drywall bathroom. I mean, we’ve got cutting boards. I mean, we’ve got all kinds of stuff. It’s got a swing on the end…” So have a conversation with your agent.
There’s a handful, less than a handful of companies that will actually extend coverage on an actual cash value basis, which means if you’ve got a really old dock, it’s not going to be worth a whole lot if there’s a claim. So if you’ve got a 40 year old dock, you’re not going to get anywhere near as much as you would if it was a brand new dock.
So actual cash value simply means “what is this thing worth?” It’s depreciated, it’s 40 years old, it’s next to falling down versus a brand new dock. So I do think the brand new dock people are going to be more inclined to look into dock insurance.
If you simply have no options with your homeowner’s policy, there are other excess and surplus type markets that we can go to to just have a stand-alone policy for your dock.
Now, keep in mind, it’s just going to cover the property component of the dock, so the dock itself. There’s going to be no liability coverage extended to it. So if we’re doing this, we do want to talk about and make sure that your homeowners policy does extend coverage to the dock, and we can get that confirmed with the underwriters for the owner’s insurance policy too. So I always try a couple of these two together.
Let’s look at the property component and always look at the liability component as well. And every homeowner is different. Every single dock owner’s different, prices change depending on where you are. Salt water, fresh water, the amount of use it gets, if it’s on intercoastal, there’s a lot of different dynamics. And you’re unique, so we would want to actually talk to you, figure out specifically what you need.
So if you have questions or you need to help with these, call our office. It’s it’s 239-674-7630. Or if you prefer, go to our website. It’s goodladandswank.com. Thank you.
