Why TowboatUS membership if insurance covers tows?

[BandB]

While Progressive & Geico have tow coverage, read the fine print. It could have a limit of covering tows up to $300 or some other low figure. If your tow costs $800, then you have $500 out of pocket.

Or some insurance policies have a mileage limit. They will only covered a set number of miles. If the tow is more miles than what they allow, you pay beyond what they cover.

When an insurance company covers boat towing, they usually have limits of some kind. The terms are not as liberal as the tow coverage on your car.

The tow terms on your car aren't all that liberal either. Just auto towing is less expensive. Tow coverage on auto insurance is accident dependent generally. Tow coverage on memberships like AAA or your manufacturer's plan often have limits that consumers are shocked by. Most commonly they will not tow you where you want to be towed.

The model for the boat tow memberships was AAA and other auto programs. AAA Classic is up to 5 miles. Not much help in rural areas. Lock and Key is limited to $50, which is well under the cost.

 

[psneeld]

True about auto towing...just went throught that 2X?

True of assistance towing companies too. The fime print may say they are only required to take you to the nearest suitable repair facility.

Straight from a membership agreement....

"Out of the Member’s Home Area:*When out of the*member’s*home area*or when the*member*does not have a designated*home area, and, in either case, in an area where Sea Tow is operating, the*member*receives, per*incident, one of the following:*assistance towing*of the*covered vessel*to the nearest dock or facility, that in the Sea Tow Captain’s judgment, will best facilitate repair or transportation of the vessel; Alternatives to Towing (as indicated below); or,*assistance towing*of the*covered vessel*to its*home port*where the*home port*is in the Sea Tow area (AOR) adjacent to where the*incident*occurred."

 

[CaptTom]

Agreed that the farther you get from popular boating centers, the more towing services may get a little sketchy.

Well rest assured when passing by Southern New Jersey, one assistance company doesnt come out at their convenience. The captains are on 24x7 and will come in all but life threatening weather for any covered service. The will also come in life threatening weather, or fire/explosion, or dang near anything else maritime including pro bono search and rescue for all kinds of missions.

I have delivered 2 gallons of 2 cycle oil 60 miles out....and missed probably more holidays and family events than when I eas in the USCG.... so convenience doesnt aoply to all franchises.

There are people who choose to not buy memberships or pay for tows and call the USCG hoping to avoid spending money. It usually becomes obvious after a few radio calls who they are and some are legit low income boaters, many around here are not. So MARBS are common yet both towing companies are waiting till the boater gets tired of waiting and agrees to pay.

As I posted before, hard to pin down exactly what to expext or not with towing companies...but generally they do follow their national membership rules or risk losing their franchise.

Heck my old boss got fined $100 every time one of his captains was caught not wearing a life jacket underway by national....

I just want to add that I wasn't implying any disrespect for the tow boat operators. It's a tough job and they do some great, sometimes heroic, things.

My point is that in some areas, they're small operations, geared more toward towing in the weekend harbor boaters than long-range cruisers off shore. And in other areas there simply is no service available.

When the dispatcher tells me that "no captain is available," I have no way of knowing if that means a team of crack marine salvors has been working 48 hours straight on a daring rescue and can't help me, or if the one local captain is sleeping off a hard night of drinking.

And as a cruiser, it doesn't matter. All I know is that I've called and gotten great responses a couple of times, and a couple of other times gotten "yeah, no. Want us to call the Coast Guard for you?"

Knowing the inconsistent level of service that the towing insurance plans actually deliver, I choose to sign up for both, and keep my towing rider on my regular insurance.

And I salute the dedicated operators out there doing a good job!

 

[Seaview]

Boatus includes tow insurance coverage up to $50 as part of the annual membership fee. If you want more than $50 then they sell you the optional coverage
Read the fine print

 

[foggysail]

Boatus includes tow insurance coverage up to $50 as part of the annual membership fee. If you want more than $50 then they sell you the optional coverage
Read the fine print

Just as AAA has limited towing unless you pay for extended coverage.

 

[psneeld]

Still plenty of limitations in "unlimited" towing that will never be included in a membership....no matter how much you want to buy....

 

[BandB]

Still plenty of limitations in "unlimited" towing that will never be included in a membership....no matter how much you want to buy....

A wonderful but limited service. I see it used in many of the less traditional ways through yacht captains and management companies I know. Traditional would be engine issues, fuel, soft grounding. However, I see boats unloaded off ships and batteries depleted, boats having work done on them and moving from one yard to another, not operable, boats just picked up and overheating, even boats being moved out from shows and sales group ran the batteries down. Many times problems surface and towing is the only way to assure not damaging the engines. One of the strangest I recall was a marina/yard where the marina will not move the boat themselves between the service dock and the slips, so tow is all of 100 yards.

We've never used the service for a tow, but have observed the providers on the lake and have talked to tow captains in many areas and been very impressed and glad to know they're there if we need them. I do know a boat just towed home from the Bahamas two weeks ago. Not sure how that came about.

There is nothing ever anywhere that is unlimited and this is no exception. Unlimited typically has an asterisk which then ties to limitations shown below.

 

[psneeld]

Unfortunately what some people think is covered, isnt always.

Now depending on how they got to that misunderstanding is often a sore point. Whether a bold faced lie at a boat show from a company rep or believing what a friend told them, it still stings to fork over a $1000 or so bucks unexpectedly.

What a lot of people dont understand, is that one set of circumstances making a tow a covered service may not apply in their case.... heck... something as simple as being friends with the franchise owner can change that.

 

[BandB]

Unfortunately what some people think is covered, isnt always.

Now depending on how they got to that misunderstanding is often a sore point. Whether a bold faced lie at a boat show from a company rep or believing what a friend told them, it still stings to fork over a $1000 or so bucks unexpectedly.

What a lot of people dont understand, is that one set of circumstances making a tow a covered service may not apply in their case.... heck... something as simple as being friends with the franchise owner can change that.

And like any other contract, read it. Know in advance by doing so or at least know the questionable areas.

I hope our membership dollars are never used, but we more than get our share of updates on local conditions and the other thing that having the major tow memberships has done is led to far more tow providers than there were or otherwise would be.

 

[McGillicuddy]

So many things I could comment on here............................
The high points:
I owned a TowBoatUS franchise from 2007 through 2014. Never made a nickel of profit. Bought the franchise thinking it would be a great retirement job and perhaps it would have. But I was economically induced to return to full time employment so ended up hiring a manager and operators for the franchise to do the things I would normally have done myself. Operators are paid by the hour, when they worked. Some times we would go two weeks without a call. Sometimes we would have four at the same time. Most commonly we had two jobs a week. The boating downturn 2008-2011 were very difficult for us. When we went for long periods without a call and then had to call an operator the response was not always positive. Likely they had other plans for that day. But we always, somehow, answered the bell. Maybe not as quickly as the member wanted but we always did the job.
We did two jobs from Bahamas to Canaveral that were covered so I know that there is get home coverage there. The Miami guys do many, many Bahamas trips.
Other get home trips might involve several franchise owners. We each have a 50 mile area. It was not unusual for us to pick up a tow already underway from the franchise south of us and then tow them through our area and hand it off to the franchise north of us.
We would take dead boats from owners home dock to shipyards regularly. This was a covered tow and usually required one day notice for approval.
We would lose our franchise if we signed up a new member then immediately towed them. We were told in no uncertain terms by the head office that this was considered fraud.
A lapsed membership had slightly more discretion. We could negotiate a reinstatement with head office for maybe a couple of weeks after expiration. But we couldn’t do that twice in one year! So going to bat for a customer required some discretion.
The biggest busy areas are Tampa Bay, Miami and Fort Lauderdale franchises. They owners there are millionaires now. The remainder of franchise owners might make a living if they combine the franchise with a repair service or small marina. Boating activity is well up since I owned a franchise so maybe it’s more lucrative now. I sold my franchise for $80,000 less than I paid for it.
I’m not complaining, merely giving a few insights. I made enough other income that I was able to right off the losses. Personally I have TowBoatUS Gold coverage even though I have Geico insurance with TowBoat coverage. It’s cheap coverage and if I ever leave Geico or am not on my own boat I will still be good.