Part of the marine cluster. Most privately owned boats spend more of the year out of use than in it, and this is what the policy says about those months.
A boat in commission is being watched. Lines are checked, batteries are charged, bilges are pumped, and someone notices when something is wrong. A boat laid up is not, and a surprising share of losses — fire, theft, storm damage, cradle failure, damage during lifting — happen in exactly that period. Marine wordings deal with it through a lay-up provision, which reduces the premium and, in exchange, imposes conditions.
What a lay-up period is
It is a declared span of time during which the vessel is out of commission at a stated location and not used. Three things are declared: the dates, the place, and whether the boat is ashore or afloat. The rating for that span is lower because the exposure is lower — no navigation, no crew, no guests, no collision risk under way.
Cover continues during lay-up, but for a narrower set of causes: fire, theft, storm, malicious damage, and on most wordings damage occurring during lifting, craning and movement within the yard. What is suspended is everything associated with use.
Lay-up is not a pause in the policy. It is a different set of terms for a period when the boat is doing nothing, and it holds only while the boat really is doing nothing.
The condition owners breach
The single most common failure is using the boat during a declared lay-up: a fine weekend in February, a short trip to move her, a run of the engines that turns into an afternoon out. The wording says out of commission, and a day out is a day outside the terms on which the period was rated.
The fix is trivial if done in advance. Ask for the lay-up dates to be varied, or for a short in-commission window to be endorsed. Both are routine and usually cost little. Neither is available retrospectively, which is the whole point.
Two related conditions travel with it: the location must be the declared one, so moving the boat to a different yard needs notification; and where the wording requires the boat to be ashore, leaving her afloat through the period is a breach even though it feels like the more careful option.
Lifting, craning and the yard
Lifting is a concentrated exposure — a large, heavy, awkward object suspended in slings for a few minutes, twice a year. Two separate arrangements respond if something goes wrong, and they are frequently confused.
Your policy normally covers the vessel during lifting and movement within the yard. Read the condition: some wordings require the operation to be carried out by the yard’s own trained staff using its own equipment, which is the usual arrangement anyway but occasionally is not.
The yard’s liability responds where the yard is at fault, capped by its trading conditions and payable only after fault is established. Yard conditions in Portugal, as elsewhere, cap liability at a figure that bears no relation to the value of a mid-sized yacht. It is liability, not insurance — the same distinction that applies to removals and shipping.
The practical point is that neither arrangement makes the other unnecessary, and the owner’s policy is the one that pays quickly.
Laying up for the winter?
Send us the dates and the yard and we will confirm the policy matches what you are actually doing.
Ashore or afloat
| Ashore in a yard | Afloat in a berth | |
|---|---|---|
| Storm and swell | Largely removed | Chafe, surge and breakaway remain |
| Sinking | Removed | Real — failed seacock, hose or stern gland, blocked drains |
| Fire | Yards store hulls close together; fire spreads | Spreads between adjacent vessels |
| Wind | Cradle failure and toppling in a strong gale | Well secured, generally stable |
| Theft | Depends entirely on yard security | Depends on marina access control |
| Rating | Usually the more favourable | Accepted, sometimes with conditions |
Most wordings prefer ashore for a long lay-up, and most Algarve owners lay up ashore because the yards are alongside the marinas. Either is acceptable; what is not acceptable is a schedule that says one and a boat that is doing the other.
How the boat is left
Conditions attached to a lay-up tend to be about preparation, and they are the same things a careful owner does anyway:
- Shore power disconnected or the installation checked, since faults in shore-power systems are a leading cause of yard fires.
- Gas isolated at the bottle and the system checked.
- Batteries either removed, or maintained on a charger the wording accepts; some exclude unattended charging entirely.
- Seacocks closed if afloat, and cockpit and deck drains cleared so rain does not accumulate.
- Cradling and chocking to the yard’s standard, with the mast either stepped and secured or unstepped and stored.
- Covers secured — a cover that works loose in a gale does more damage than no cover at all.
- Portable valuables and electronics removed, with anything remaining aboard listed and, where significant, scheduled.
- A named person visiting at a stated interval where the wording requires it, particularly for boats left afloat.
Extended lay-up, and boats that are not being used at all
A boat laid up for a season is one thing. A boat that has not moved for two or three years — a sale that has not happened, a project that stalled, an owner who stopped coming — is a different risk, and it needs saying rather than leaving to be discovered. Long inactivity brings deterioration that is excluded as wear and tear, and it also raises the question of whether the vessel remains in a condition the policy contemplated. Underwriters will usually continue cover on an extended lay-up basis, with conditions, if asked.
Why not simply lapse the cover
Because the exposure does not go away and the saving is small. Lay-up rating already reflects the reduced risk, so cancelling for the winter saves a fraction of an annual premium and removes cover for the period in which fire, theft and storm losses concentrate. It also breaks continuity, and continuity is one of the things an underwriter looks at when pricing the renewal — along with the survey history, which is where a boat that sat unused and unmaintained for two winters tends to show up.
Adler & Rochefort is a commercial brand of Ownizo, Unipessoal Lda., registered with the Portuguese Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASF) under no. 425591790/3. General information only, not personalised advice; cover, sub-limits and conditions vary by underwriter and by risk.
More on this subject: Bringing a boat to Portugal: flag, registration and the delivery passage · Berthed in the Algarve: what the marina requires and what it does not cover