Insurance for fishermen

Fishing concentrates hazards that are individually manageable and collectively serious: winches and warps under load, moving decks, cold, fatigue from long watches, and a working environment where a routine injury is hours or days from a hospital. Insurers do not price the fish. They price the distance.

That is why inshore and deep-sea work are treated so differently. A day boat out of a New Zealand port and back the same evening is a heavy manual risk with normal access to care. A vessel working offshore for weeks at a time, with crew transfers and long steaming times, is a different proposition, and some insurers will not write income protection for it at all.

The second complication is how fishermen are paid. Crew share arrangements mean income tracks the catch and the price, which is exactly the pattern that indemnity income protection handles badly — the benefit gets calculated from a twelve-month period that may bear little relationship to a normal year.

The third is debt. Quota, vessels and gear are expensive, and in owner-operator fishing that debt is usually carried by one or two people whose ability to work is the security behind it, whatever the bank has registered.

Fishing is one of the occupations where the exclusions matter as much as the price. They are not always obvious, and they are not always in the occupation section.

• Geographic limits: cover that responds only within a defined distance of New Zealand, or that excludes specified waters.
• Vessel-related exclusions, sometimes tied to vessel size or the type of fishing undertaken.
• Transfer exclusions covering helicopter or small-boat transfers to and from a vessel — a routine part of some operations and an aviation risk in insurance terms.
• Diving exclusions, which catch anyone doing commercial diving as part of the operation.
• Time-away conditions, where extended periods outside New Zealand can affect cover under some policies.

These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.

• Whether the policy distinguishes inshore from deep-sea work, and which one you have been rated on.
• Any geographic, vessel or transfer exclusions, and exactly what triggers them.
• How income is proved if you are paid a share of the catch rather than a wage.
• Whether commercial diving forms part of your duties, which is usually rated and excluded separately.
• The benefit period and waiting period offered, both of which are commonly restricted for this occupation.
• Whether life and trauma cover carry the same restrictions as the disability cover — often they do not.

Every New Zealand insurer writes cover for commercial fishing to its own wording, and the words are where the money is. Two policies that look identical on price can pay very differently when it matters. Closing that gap is the entire job of an adviser.

• Appetite for commercial fishing is narrow and differs sharply between insurers. Knowing who currently writes it is the value.
• Exclusions can sometimes be narrowed by describing the operation precisely — vessel size, waters worked, trip length — rather than accepting a blanket wording.
• Where income protection is unavailable, trauma and TPD cover sized to the debt often does more useful work than nothing.
• Crew share income needs a properly evidenced application. An adviser will build that file before approaching an insurer, not after a decline.

There are three ways to buy life cover in New Zealand, and they are not equivalent. You can buy direct from one insurer, which means you see one product range and one underwriting appetite. You can buy through your bank, which usually means a single insurer’s product sold under the bank’s brand, often with narrower definitions. Or you can go through an adviser, who quotes several insurers at once and is required to put your interests first.

The premium you pay is the same either way. Insurers build adviser commission into their pricing whether or not an adviser is involved, so going direct does not get you a discount — it just removes the person whose job is to argue your corner at application and at claim time.

• An adviser can see which insurer is currently taking your health history on standard terms, and which one will load or exclude it.
• An adviser can structure cover across two insurers if that produces a better outcome than putting everything with one.
• An adviser handles the underwriting back-and-forth, and is the person who chases the claim when a family is least able to.
• An adviser has to document why the recommendation suits you, which is a written record you can hold them to.

We are a referral service, not an insurer. We do not quote premiums and we do not sell policies. What we do is put you in front of one licensed New Zealand adviser who can compare the market properly.

1. 1

   You tell us what you are looking at

   The form takes about a minute. Nobody asks for your medical history on a web form — that conversation happens with the adviser, properly, and only once you have decided to proceed.

2. 2

   An adviser calls you

   A licensed New Zealand adviser talks through your situation: who depends on you, what you owe, what you already have in place, and what you are actually worried about.

3. 3

   They compare the market

   The adviser quotes across the major insurers, checks which of them will take your health history on the best terms, and puts the options side by side in writing.

4. 4

   You decide, in your own time

   There is no obligation and no cost to you. If the answer is that you already have enough cover, a good adviser will tell you that.