Insurance Company issue

[JK 28]

There have been a few recommendations on the site for insurance companies so I thought I would take the opportunity to add a recommendation for one to stay away from, Lumley Insurance.

 

Lumley have declined a claim for damage to a rudder, and resulting towage charges, as they put the failure of the rudder down to "wear and tear". The rudder stock, which had been in to a marine engineers for additional bracing and strengthening a few months ago, suddenly failed in only 15knots of breeze leaving the rudder blade and part of the aluminium fabrication recovered.

 

I was not on the boat at the time but have been told it was likely it caught something in the water, Lumley on the other hand say this is not possible as the rudder would have been shielded by the keel. The intent of the work done on the rudder was to add strength and robustness & I would not have considered it a candidate for imminent failure.

 

The policy was taken out as I had the house/contents/cars/3 x kids Optis insured with them & added the boat when the last policy came up for renewal for the ease of having everthing in one place. Lesson now learned and will move my policies to somewhere that comes with a recommendation.

[Guest]

Ah knot wanting to be rude but if the rudder was reinforced and strengthen only a few months ago then failed in 15kts, I think I'd be looking at it sideways as well or at least asking some hard questions.

 

I think I'd be asking the engineer, 'How's you Public Liability Insurance?'.

 

As a side note: I've had and have lots of commercial stuff with Lumley and had a few small claims but one very large one. Can't think of a bad word to say about them personally.

[Guest]

Lumleys wraughted me for 28k on a car policy - material non disclosure - I had used it twice for work and it got nicked one Tuesday night from my driveway and I hadn't informed them that I had (in the past) used it for work. Went to ombudsman, they see it every week...bad luck son.

 

They are A*seholes.

[Guest]

I am not an expert in this area. Your Fire and General Broker would be able to help.

 

But two things:

 

Insurance generally covers you for a 'sudden failure / event' e.g accident.

>Sounds like the picture you painted for them involved a rudder stock with ongoing issues?

 

Also, the insurance company generally won't pay for the specific part that fails.

They will however pay for the subsequent damage etc.

 

E.g. if a bit holding up a mast fails, they won't replace that specific part.

but they will replace the broken mast, wrecked sails etc.

 

If your rudder stock failed they are not going to replace that bit which was not up to standard, perhaps poorly engineered or designed.

They would however pay for any subsquent damage.

 

Sure if you ran over a log and smashed the rudder stock, then they should consider the claim.

 

I would definitely talk to my broker about revisiting the claim if you have hit something.

[Steve Pope 243]

I can only claim one experience with Lumley through Baileys Ins Brokers, although not a large claim it was settled quite quickly and positively in my favour. Baileys were excellent to deal with.

[JK 28]

Knot so much an ongoing issue with the rudder stock, yes a crack was noticed on the rudder stock & it was taken to an engineering shop who in the process of fixing it up welded in additional bracing/strapping - now I'm not an engineer/metallurgist but to my eye it did look OK for the intended use and design wise it was professionaly built and had been on the boat since new.

 

The engineers certainly did not tell me they had just charged me to botch it up & it was not going to hold together, more along the lines that it should now be stronger than it had been since new. It did not fail gradually but was a sudden failiure, on a sports boat under gennaker there was a bit of speed involved but have been told the helm was not loaded up & they feel they hit something. Far from paying for subsequent damage Lumley specifically refuse to as they say this was all caused by the stock failure.

 

Now I could go back to the engineering shop, but they are just going to say that in their opinion it was fit for purpose & that it must have hit something. Is that not why you have insurance, to pay for sudden unexpected damage, and if Lumley want to work it out with the engineers public liability insurer then it would be up to them?

 

And Paddy, regarding your analogy to the mast - using Lumley's argument that failed mast fitting was due to "wear and tear" and all subsequent damage and costs are specifically excluded, including having the boat towed in because the rigging was caught around the prop.

[Fish 0]

We recently went through a major exercise of changing insurance co's, including reading a number of policies thoroughly.

I'm very surprised Lumley hasn't paid out on 'consequential' costs of recovering the boat. I would have thought that was clear cut and beleive you rightfully have an issue with them.

 

Fixing the rudder would depend on a few things such as the wording of the policy and what actually happened. Dismissing the rudder failure as being 'wear & tear' as the keel would have protected it is a poor arguement and indicates Lumley aren't a good outfit to ensure a boat with. Any number of things could have bounced off the keel and taken the rudder out, from logs to plastic bags.

 

We didn't go with Lumley, didn't like the wording of a few of their clauses, I'm glad now.

[wheels 543]

The problem with a situation like this, is that we here can never have enough details to be able to make a fair coment.

I suggest you get a Surveyor or Marine engineer to take a look. If they say it was due to poor repair work, you can go the engineerign company that did the work.

If it was due to hitting something, someone would have known. It takes a lot of force to break a rudder. If it was something getting hung up on it, the Rudder should be able to bring the boat to a halt and survive. You can't, or at least you shouldn't be able to have it just fall off due to a bit of strain.

If there were cracks and the Engineer didn't pick all them up, that may or may not be his fault. If it was "hey we found a crack, do you want us to fix it and beef it up a little" then that is what they did. If it was a case of, "hey Mr Engineer, this thing has cracks, can you repair it?" then that is a different story because they did not do what was required. There could be other scenarios in that also and that is up to you to work out who is really to blame if anyone at all.

The towing part, well yeah i don't know the Policy wording, or how that kind of thing gets covered. Maybe "crews" resident Insurance Broker could step in and help here.

[SanFran 12]

Just had a claim with Lumleys... Couldnt fault them. All actioned by the assessor. Sweet

[JK 28]

Unfortunately Wheels the majority of the rudder stock was lost during the incident so not possible to have a look. As to if it should have been able to take the force or not, from the bottom of the rudder blade to the gudgeons there would be about 5feet of leverage, I'm guessing in a gust the boat could have been doing maybe 12knots. Would/should the aluminium frame have coped with say getting a large plastic sheet or something around it? When I was at university we used to work out calculations like that but the bottom line is it was professionally designed/built & the insurance company are not saying it was unfit for purpose but that it must have failed due to wear & tear as the keel would have protected the rudder from collision with any object.

 

They also say they will not accept any towage costs as the cause can be laid back to the alleged wear and tear on the rudder stock.

[TimW 1]

Sorry to hear of your troubles John.

 

It might be worth mentioning that if you are dealing through a broker such as Baileys, they have a great deal more "clout" with the Insurance company than an Individual does.

 

It seems to me that getting the right broker is the key to getting the best insurance.

[w44vi 17]

I'm guessing in a gust the boat could have been doing maybe 12knots. Would/should the aluminium frame have coped with say getting a large plastic sheet or something around it?

 

From YNZ

Rudders of the spade type with a solid shaft should conform as a minimum to the sizes shown in the following chart (see over). Alternatively,

an engineer’s calculation will be acceptable showing the shaft to be safe at a minimum speed of 10 knots with the blade set at 90 degrees to the direction of travel.

 

You say that it has an aluminum frame so I assume that it also has a aluminum stock you may want to check the stock size it has to be massive to comply

 

Aluminium alloy (ultimate ten strength 260MPa)

 

0.112m2 48.1mm

0.224m2 59.8mm

0.336m2 70.0mm

0.448m2 79.9mm

0.504m2 84.7mm

0.672m2 97.2mm

[JK 28]

ww44vi - that was rudder stock as in an aluminium frame that the daggerboard type rudder drops down into, it's stern hung. The gudgeons stayed put, the frame ripped off backwards.

 

Not sure the repairs to the rudder housing had anything to do with it, seemed solid enough but cannot be sure as a lot of the frame was lost. The thing that hacked me off was their insistance that the rudder could not be hit as it is behind the keel, much as I may like to think the boat runs like it is on rails at times it is not a train! Then they insist that as the rudder could not have been hit it must have been wear & tear - I had just paid a decent amount of money to have the rudder fixed and was under the impression it was fit for the job.

 

Just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, what next - I tow the kids Opti's around on a trailer, what say one of the ties breaks on the top one & it flips off onto a following Farrari. Now I do replace the ties from time to time, but would that be wear & tear as well?

 

Anyway lesson learned & don't want to drag the thread on, I was just letting off steam. Tend to agree with TimW & will go back to using a broker, always had done just changed in the last year as I thought it would make things easier only having the one bill. It was not as if it was noticably cheaper.

[wheels 543]

Ouch. Wow, that takes some force.

Sorry for these questions and especially as they may not produce an answer. But it helps to make all this clear.

Was the Rudder designed by the boat designer??

Was it supported top and bottom?

So is the Shaft (rudder stock) all one piece all the way down from top to bottom, and supported top and bottom by the gudgeons, and part and parcel of the Rudder itself? or is the stock bolted to the rudder via a Shoe plate?

Did the shaft break and is the upper stock still there? is there any of the stock in the bottom gudgeon, or does it look like it pulled out of that bearing and went with the rudder?

Is the shaft stock Alluminium or SST??

 

My rudder is an Ally Frame willed with urathane foam and then glassed over. A SST plate is bolted top and bottom and sealed from water (hopefully) and the bottom has a SST shaft that sits in the bottom gudgeon and the top has a shoe plate bolted to the SST rudder stock. It is a 60mm SST shaft. The Keel sits right in front of the Rudder and there would be no way of getting hung up on something. If it did, I doubt it would damage the shafts or bearings. I ionly have two fears with my desing. one was the possible Puncturing of the glass skin by some hard object and the other is water getting into the SST/Ally plate area and corroding. So far so good. The other point in mys design was that the rudder produces about 360Kg of bouancy to the stern. It has helped make the stearing feel much lighter and I can only hope that has meant less strain down there, but at the same time, I have never felt sure if it just means strain in a different and wrong way. Time will tell I guess.

 

Depending on the design of a rudder, it can live under unbelievable forces. If you have a foil design, then it is under the greatest force. A rudder provides about 10% of the lift to a Hull. If you now think of the force being developed to cause you boat to move through the water at speed as a "wing", then 10% of all that force is being seen by the rudder. Now couple that to aded forces that don't provide lift, but produce the knocks to your speed. Wave action, turning, drag and so on. The result is a very large amont of strain seen on that rudder.

The problem with all materials used in the Shafts(stock) is that it all has negatives. SST is prone to crevice cracking. The nasty thing about that is, you can't always see it. It can look as new as the day it was fitted, right up to the point of failure. Alluminium shafts can shear. Ally has a lot of give and movement, but after awhile, it starts to fatigue and eventually it cracks at certain stress points. It is very hard to break it cleanly in an impact though, as it has a lot of softness. it will tend to bend, rather than abrubtly fail. It's biggest downfall is corrosion due to electrolysis. It only takes a SST bolt or some Copper antifoul or any dissimilar metal to be in contact or close contact and you can have a major problem.

 

I honestly can't comment on the insurance part sorry. I just don't know whgat can be down there.But if you had a Broker that oprginaly arranged the insurance, I would goback to him and get him to go into bat for you. At least see if they would entertain getting and engineering report and see if you can gofrom there.

[JK 28]

Wheels, I know you like the technical stuff so here it is:

 

It is a 7.5m sports boat with a transom hung rudder. As per the plans the rudder is a dagger board type made of foam/kevlar that dropped into an aluminium frame which had a fibrglass envelope top/bottom to hold the blade in place. The rudder blade is about 1.7m from tip to the tiller connection, the gudgeons are about 250mm apart and attach immediately under the tiller tube so within the top 300mm of the rudder blade. There is a 20mm or so stainless pin joins the frame to the transom, the frame was around 300mm or so square made of 25mm box/angle sections so maybe 75mm wide overall.

 

So, no shaft and not supported top & bottom, no shoe plate. Being a sports boat it had been out of the water most of its life & mostly covered when not in use. It had developed a crack in a weld but I had this welded up, they took the opportunity to put an additional band of aluminium around the top/bottom adjacent to the gudgeon fittings & some additional 45degree bracing between these.

[PaulR 3]

Any rudder photos before / after??

[wheels 543]

Arrrrr, I see. That is completely different then. And in fact, the Keel is not really protecting the Rudder, because the Hull would be slipping side ways to a point. So it is quite possible for something to catch it. Although I would be surprised if crew did not now for sure. Either a good hard wack or if it was large plastic sheet or line or weed, then it would really slow things down till it went.

However, it is proving that to the insurance company. Are the ware of the design??

Certainly these rudders take some enormous side ways loading and it is quite possible for it to fail. So you really need some pro help to try and determin if a reason for failure can be determined.

Oh, did an assessor actually take a look?? It would be very unfair if this was a decision made from an office. Someone needs to take a look at the very least.

[Guest]

Did it break off at welds?

The metal remnants may show whether or not the break was caused by metal fatigue, crevice corrosion or poor welding technique.

Proving the break was caused by force (twisted remnants) could sort out your claim.

[smithy09 50]

Did it break off at welds?

The metal remnants may show whether or not the break was caused by metal fatigue, crevice corrosion or poor welding technique.

Proving the break was caused by force (twisted remnants) could sort out your claim.

Damn good point Slacko, and one that anyone with any metal fatigue experience could not refute. Worth a shot!

[MarkMT 68]

Thanks for sharing your experience JK. I guess some companies just haven't woken up to the fact that doing business in the internet age means that if they don't meet their customers' expectations it's just going to come back and bite them. I'll be steering clear of them for sure.