We are presently working up our STORM PLAN for staying in the Caribbean this Hurricane Season.
No place is 100% safe. This situation is complicated this year, because some of the Lloyds underwriting syndicates are (since March 2018) removing any coverage for Named Tropical Storms (NTS).
We see this as the Insurance Company - Pantaenius AUST, in our case - removing NTS coverage from their standard policy. The change will take place when an existing policy is renewed, or when a new policy is issued. Coverage for NTS can in some cases be obtained by paying an excess premium, typically between 40% and 50% of the annual premium.
For us, we renew in Oct'18 - meaning either that we:
> pay an extra $3k for 15 days coverage (with a pro-rata rebate possibly
available) - OR
> leave the Hurricane Belt (between 10º and 30.5º North), until the
Hurricane season defined by Pantaenius ends (15-Nov) - OR
> we stay, and self-insure against a NTS.
Coverage with other insurance companies is under investigation.
In the meantime, while we work this out, we are have a paid reservation for a marina berth in Curaçao, and have a reservation inquiry for haul-out with Curaçao Marine. The response-time to an on-line inquiry via their web-site was less than 24 hours. Cost: haul-out will be about USD550- in+out; yard fees of between USD610- and USD660- per month; an insurance-approved cradle costing USD80- to set-up, and then USD110- per month rental. There are a few other incidental costs, depending upon your usage pattern, such as custom USD65- in/out, and a usage fee of USD5- per day.
Preliminary study of the Hurricane Patterns seem to indicate that Curaçao is not often affected by Tropical Storm systems and, when so, not (often) major hurricanes. But the updated forecasts for the 2018 Hurricane Season are not released until early May; until then, the best information we can find from the meteorologists, is that the 2018 season in the Atlantic Basin will be as active as 2017. Surface Sea Temperatures are up near 25ºC, so already close to that needed to trigger / assist the formation of cyclonic weather systems.
We have not yet decided on our final strategy for this season.
David
Perigee, SM#396
St Maarten
