Narrowboat insurance: what you actually need
Third-party liability insurance is a condition of your Canal & River Trust licence — without it, the licence is not valid. Most boaters go further and insure the boat itself, and living aboard needs to be declared.
Insurance is the obligation people forget, because unlike the licence and the safety certificate nobody sends you a reminder tied to your boat number.
The minimum
Third-party liability cover is required as a condition of the licence. It covers damage you do to other people, their boats, and the infrastructure — which on a canal is easier than it sounds, given locks, lock gates and other people's paintwork.
If it lapses, your licence condition is broken even though the licence itself has not expired.
Beyond the minimum
- —Third party only — the licence minimum, covers others and not your boat
- —Third party, fire and theft — adds the most common total-loss risks
- —Comprehensive — adds damage to your own boat, usually including sinking
If you live aboard
Say so. A policy written for a leisure boat used at weekends may not respond properly to a claim on a boat someone lives in, and an undeclared residential use is the kind of thing insurers rely on later. Liveaboard policies also tend to cover possessions, which a leisure policy will not.
Continuous cruisers should also check the cruising range and any mooring conditions in the policy — some are written assuming a home mooring you do not have.
Keep a record as you go
CruiseProof logs every mooring with a date and position, counts the days from when you arrived, and produces a cruising log you can send when you are asked for one.
Start your log — free