Friday 11 April 2014

Fwd: Re: NR 9492 - MARINE INSURANCE

Hi to all that could be affected by this sorry tale. We have had our boat insured with Northern Reef Insurance of Montevideo, Uruguay for over 4 years and have paid them in excess of NZD8,000 in premiums over that time. We have never had a claim. Then they wanted to charge us extra for Thailand and this, combined with a general unease at their possible claims paying ability prompted us to seek another insurance company. We have now done this and we are dealing with a well known company with much better terms, and absolutely improved peace of mind.
Anyway, we asked for a refund of unexpired premium as per the attached and received a 2 sentence reply from their agents, Edward William Marine Services of Malaga, Spain stating that there was no need for bank details (deleted for the purpose of this email) because there was NO REFUND!!! This was the most arrogant, disrespectful, discourteous and straightout dishonest reply to anything I have ever received. Apart from posting the details on this website, which we have advised them of, we will also be gradually posting these details on every cruising forum we can find as well as passing this information on verbally whenever appropriate.
We don't know what would have happened if we'd ever been unfortunate enough to have a major or total loss claim but are fairly sure from this recent experience that our situation would probably have been DIRE.
We were particularly saddened that the insurance had originally been arranged through Brian Hepburn - an insurance broker based in Opua, Bay of Islands, NZ. Jim had known and respected Brian for a number of years as a person who had many years and tens of thousands of miles of blue water sailing under his belt and it is inexplicable that we have now come to this apparent impasse.
For anyone reading this, we recommend that you do not insure with Northern Reef and if you are already insured with them, that you change insurance companies as soon as practicable, notwithstanding that you won't receive a refund of unexpired premium!!!
Jim Donald
s.v. Tiare Taporo III
Pangkor Is. Marina
Lumut
Malaysia
----- Original Message -----
To: info@northernreef.net
Subject: Fwd: Re: NR 9492
Date: 08 Apr 2014 13:14:43 -0000
From: zmq5985

Good morning,
I sent the attached email to request a refund of unexpired premium after we cancelled our policy. We cancelled because we found another insurance company which did not charge us extra for cruising in Thailand. We then formally requested the refund. Following that we received a 2 sentence email from your agent, Edward William to say that bank details were unnecessary because there was NO REFUND!!! No further comment or explanation. We have never been treated with such dishonest disrespect or discourtesy in our lives.
We have replied to Edward William in the strongest terms and no reply has been forthcoming. We threatened them that unless a more favourable reply was received within 24 hours we would be publicising the whole sorry business on our website and indeed on any other cruisers' forums that we could make contact with.
We hope that this course of action will not be necessary and that you will make us a favourable offer as regards refund of unexpired premium.
Jim Donald
s.v. Tiare Taporo III
Pangkor Island Marina
Lumut
Malaysia

----- Original Message -----
To: "Edward William Marine" <michelle@edwardwilliam.com>
Cc: "Brian & Joan Hepburn" <hepburn@insurancemarine-online.com>
Subject: Re: NR 9492
Date: 06 Apr 2014 01:59:53 -0000
From: zmq5985

Attn: Michelle
Good morning,
I have your email dated March 31st. in which you acknowledge cancellation of the above policy and also advise that there is no refund of premium available because there is no refund available "in the final 9-12 months of the policy".
However, I have been perusing your "Northern Reef Yacht Clauses" and, depending upon which year's clauses one reads, either clause 22.2 or 21.2 states the following:
"This insurance may be cancelled by the assured when the insurers will make a time on risk charge based on the net premium using the following scale:
1 - 3 months 40% premium
4 - 6 months 60% premium
7 - 9 months 80% premium
9 - 12 months full premium"
It goes on to say that no refund will be made if the minimum premium applies. We don't believe that this latter point applies to us.
We cancelled the policy on March 27th. - 108 days before expiration of the policy. This is approximately three and a half months before expiration.
On that basis therefore it would appear that we are entitled to a refund of 60% of the premium paid. Even if your claim that there is no refund payable in the final 9-12 months of the policy is valid, it still does not apply to us because we cancelled outside this period.
We find it disappointing that you have taken the attitude that you have - particularly when we have been a client for the last 4 years and have never made a claim, except for just recently following on from the incident where another uninsured boat dragged its anchor and collided with us at Kupang in Indonesia. In this case however, we have not proceeded with the claim because our excess will exceed the cost of repairs.
You also state that it is useful for you to have details of other insurance companies' offers and conditions so that you can forward them to Northern Reef in order for them to maintain a competitive position. As we said to Brian Hepburn, we consider that it would be unethical for us to divulge such information which is confidential between us and any other insurance company. You should not need this type of disclosure to maintain a competitive position and indeed you should be proactive enough to achieve this without relying on your clients to encourage you to make various concessions that you should be making in any event.
Our bank account details are as follows:
Name of account
Account number
Bank
Branch
Bank swift code
We will be pleased to receive an appropriate refund in due course.
Jim Donald
s.v. Tiare Taporo III
Pangkor Is. Marina
Lumut
Malaysia
----- End of Original Message -----
----- End of Original Message -----

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