Making Sure Your Sailors Feel Comfortable

Ensuring that your sailors feel comfortable is essential to helping them do their job efficiently, and benefit everyone involved. A sailor’s life can be exciting and rewarding, but it can also be lonely and stressful. The job includes long hours, bad weather, and dangerous conditions. While employers do their best to provide for their sailors, there is still plenty to be done to ensure their safety and comfort.

That’s where insurance agents come in. Working with sailors to create custom insurance plans such as maritime employers liability insurance can help reduce stress and promote productivity at sea.

Sailors and the Risks

So, how can you help your clients ensure their sailors’ comfort while away from their home port? Read on to find out!

Understand Sailor’s Risk

Insurance agents assess risk for a living but don’t always understand sailors’ day-to-day dangers. For most agents, sailors might seem like high-risk clients. Constantly dealing with unpredictable weather conditions, navigating narrow channels, and working with heavy machinery increase their risk exposure considerably.

When assessing the risk of insuring sailors, there’s more to consider than just the hazards of the job. You should also account for the sailor’s experience, the boat’s value, and the safety precautions they take. Understanding these factors will help you accurately assess the risk of insuring sailors.

Know the Insurance Your Client Needs

Sailors generally live adventurous lives. They travel to exotic places, explore new cultures, and experience the thrill of the open sea. But life at sea can also be full of risks. These professionals often work long hours in harsh conditions. Subsequently, they are susceptible to injuries and illnesses.

Sailors need to have adequate insurance coverage. The most common types of insurance for sailors are health insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance. Health insurance helps cover medical care costs, while life insurance provides financial protection to their families if they die. Disability insurance replaces a portion of a sailor’s income if they cannot work due to an injury or illness. And if your client works with a crew, they need to protect themselves from liabilities and ensure their crew’s well-being.

Recommend the Right Policy

First, understand your client’s primary concern. Are they worried about their personal belongings, health, or liability in case of an accident? Once you know their concerns, you can narrow down the options.

Some policies cover all of these risks, but some may be more comprehensive than others. You should also consider the sailor’s budget. Some policies can be pretty expensive, so they must find one they can afford.

Finally, make sure to get all pertinent information before making a recommendation. It helps ensure your ability to recommend the best policy for your client’s needs.

Update your Knowledge About Sailing

As an insurance agent, it’s your job to protect your clients from the unexpected. That’s why it’s crucial to become updated on the latest safety and security measures for sailors. By staying informed, you can help your clients stay safe while they’re out on the open sea.

Remember, sailors often face dangerous conditions, so they must know how to stay safe and secure. Your responsibility is to be updated on the latest safety practices and inform your clients about them. If necessary, you could even hold a seminar to educate them on current safety developments.

Finally, stay tuned to weather forecasts at all times. Staying abreast of weather developments will help you ensure your client’s safety.

Conclusion

By ensuring sailors’ safety and comfort, agents can help reduce stress and promote productivity at sea. An updated insurance policy will also be helpful to your clients during emergencies. With your help, your sailor clients can focus on their work without worrying about their financial security.

About Merrimac Marine Insurance

At Merrimac Marine, we are dedicated to providing insurance for the marine industry to protect your clients’ business and assets. For more information about our products and programs, contact our specialists today at (800) 681-1998.