Has your family tried an eFoil?

[davew]

Just because it is not "needed" does not mean you should not have it -- Most if not all home owner / auto / policies exclude "motorized vehicles" not listed, under the liability section. These would include things like ebikes, efoils, moped..... so if you get into a accident that is your fault, if you want to be protected from that potential liability claim, you would need a policy for it.
I strongly recommend anyone with ANY rideable device that has a motor of any kind, discuss with their insurance agent what is covered and more importantly what is not.
As a Insurance Agent, I read about uncovered losses all the time. In most cases it is something that was never discussed with their agent.

 

[Sedona]

Just because it is not "needed" does not mean you should not have it -- Most if not all home owner / auto / policies exclude "motorized vehicles" not listed, under the liability section. These would include things like ebikes, efoils, moped..... so if you get into a accident that is your fault, if you want to be protected from that potential liability claim, you would need a policy for it.
I strongly recommend anyone with ANY rideable device that has a motor of any kind, discuss with their insurance agent what is covered and more importantly what is not.
As a Insurance Agent, I read about uncovered losses all the time. In most cases it is something that was never discussed with their agent.

Trying to explain to an insurance agent what an efoil is, let alone have a mega insurance company provide a policy on it, sounds daunting. Not against the idea but I'll let others be the tip of that spear.

 

[KBJ]

Just because it is not "needed" does not mean you should not have it -- Most if not all home owner / auto / policies exclude "motorized vehicles" not listed, under the liability section. These would include things like ebikes, efoils, moped..... so if you get into a accident that is your fault, if you want to be protected from that potential liability claim, you would need a policy for it.
I strongly recommend anyone with ANY rideable device that has a motor of any kind, discuss with their insurance agent what is covered and more importantly what is not.
As a Insurance Agent, I read about uncovered losses all the time. In most cases it is something that was never discussed with their agent.

would that be covered by my umbrella policy?

 

[davew]

KBJ -- great question -- your answer depends, most of the time, on what other policies you might have.
As a general rule, umbrella policies "go over" other policies you might have -- for the most part that do not add new coverage. Example-- Say you have a house policy, auto policy and boat policy -- each with $500,000 in liability coverage. If you bought a umbrella policy with $1,000,000 in limits, that policy would come into play only IF the liability for a claim against the house, auto or boat was not enough to cover the loss. Say in the above example, while driving your boat, you ran over me as a swimmer, and it was your fault- say my injuries resulted in a claim of 1.5 million. Your boat policy would pay $500,000 and your umbrella policy would pay $1,000,000.
Now say you did not have the boat policy -- in that scenario, you would have no coverage for the loss under your home policy, no coverage under your auto policy, and because you did not have a boat policy, the umbrella would also not have coverage -- so you personally would be responsible for the full 1.5 with nothing to back you up ( your insurance company would more than likely also deny claim quickly and you would get to pay for your legal bills as well.)
So basically, a umbrella just adds limits to policies you already have. There are some exceptions to this, but those are limited.

Getting back to the efoil ( yes I understand what that is even if you need to talk slowly to me) there are several companies that will write primary coverage on them. Most "mega" companies will not touch them because there is not enough loss data to make a statistically reliable estimate of claims, and there are not enough potential policies to generate the needed premium. Insurance is always about having a large enough group of customers to make up for losses.

This issue is the same for ebikes as it is for the efoil. There are very few companies that will offer policies for ebikes, and generally those companies will only offer limited liability policies ( $15,000 to $50,000.)

So what do you risk going without a liability policy for that new ebike or efoil? Basically your financial net worth. The chance of loss is small, but if you are the "one" the financial devastation can be great.

again -- great question --

 

[Sedona]

davew said...."This issue is the same for ebikes as it is for the efoil. There are very few companies that will offer policies for ebikes, and generally those companies will only offer limited liability policies ( $15,000 to $50,000.)"

Cool...good to know. So if I were to get any basic coverage (say $15k), would my umbrella policy then cover anything over that? And if so does that means both policies would have to be written by the same insurer for the umbrella to take effect? I assume that's the case so just wondering if that would mean having to switching all my insurance over to one of the few insurers that might cover an efoil.

I subscribe to a few efoil groups and so far no one has posted about successfully (in the US) of getting liability insurance. If you have a company in mind I would be happy to repost any info you have there.

 

[davew]

davew said...."This issue is the same for ebikes as it is for the efoil. There are very few companies that will offer policies for ebikes, and generally those companies will only offer limited liability policies ( $15,000 to $50,000.)"

Cool...good to know. So if I were to get any basic coverage (say $15k), would my umbrella policy then cover anything over that? And if so does that means both policies would have to be written by the same insurer for the umbrella to take effect? I assume that's the case so just wondering if that would mean having to switching all my insurance over to one of the few insurers that might cover an efoil.

I subscribe to a few efoil groups and so far no one has posted about successfully (in the US) of getting liability insurance. If you have a company in mind I would be happy to repost any info you have there.

Sedona -- generally umbrella policies require minimum limits for the primary policies they go over -- generally those limits are $250k minimum, but some are down to $100k. The umbrella policy would also need to approve the underlying company and limits before they would go over it. Most umbrellas are written by the carrier that writes the auto coverage as that is where most of the risk resides. There are carriers that write stand alone umbrellas and each of them has their own requirements for primary policies. Best advise I can give is to contact your current agent to see what they have available for coverage. If you need to go to a additional company for the efoil coverage, ask your primary agent if the umbrella will go over.

This discussion has me asking some of my carriers that place hard to find coverage if they will entertain coverage on the efoil -- I will update when I get answers.

 

[Sedona]

Sedona -- generally umbrella policies require minimum limits for the primary policies they go over -- generally those limits are $250k minimum, but some are down to $100k. The umbrella policy would also need to approve the underlying company and limits before they would go over it. Most umbrellas are written by the carrier that writes the auto coverage as that is where most of the risk resides. There are carriers that write stand alone umbrellas and each of them has their own requirements for primary policies. Best advise I can give is to contact your current agent to see what they have available for coverage. If you need to go to a additional company for the efoil coverage, ask your primary agent if the umbrella will go over.

This discussion has me asking some of my carriers that place hard to find coverage if they will entertain coverage on the efoil -- I will update when I get answers.

Awesome...thanks!

 

[Pacific Coast Mike]

No insurance needed in AZ but it does have to be registered.

Trying to find a place to put the Hull numbers on ? I looked at the e foil website in Florida and test runs in Powell none had Hull Numbers , as far as Insurance , I would not own ANYTHING in Any State that was not covered by an Insurance Policy , The way this world is today much safer to be covered then sorry later .....IMHO

 

[ScottF]

As the original poster I humbly request no more on insurance. Maybe the three interested in this could take the discussion private?