Yacht Crew Income Protection 2023

When you are working on a yacht there are quite a few things that can affect your options for income protection.

Income protection is an incredibly important insurance that can pay you a good chunk of your monthly salary if you ill and cannot work. It usually kicks in once your sick pay through work has finished and for many people this is often between 4 to 13 weeks, from the time that you cannot work.

The insurance has the potential to pay your income right up to your retirement age. This means that if you become ill and can never work again you can have your income protected well into your 60s. There is a lot to know so let’s break it down for you.

A problem that we see some yacht crew members facing is that they don’t pay UK tax. For new income protection policies in the UK the insurer will want you to be paying UK tax. A lot of yacht crew get seafarers earning deduction and this can mean that many insurers will not be able to offer you income protection.

The key thing here is that many insurers can’t, not all of them! We have access to specialist insurers that can consider income protection applications for yacht crew members.

If you already had a UK income protection policy before you changed your tax position, you can sometimes still keep the policy in place so don’t rush to cancel or change it. The best thing is to speak with your adviser or the insurer to double check your choices.

Some insurers will be able to offer you income protection but they might ask you to send them a tax return each year as proof of earnings and they will probably want you to have a UK address too.

Where you are travelling to can have a big influence upon your options for insurance. Travelling around the Mediterranean, North America and Europe is not going to bother most insurers. 

There are some locations that insurers will be cautious especially if they are near areas of conflict, where there is piracy and any areas that are seen as a dangerous natural environment.

How you are getting there is important too. You could be asked about the size of the vessel that you will be working on. There’s quite a difference in the insurers’ eyes of the risk between working on a superyacht and a yacht of 24 metres or less.

What do you do?

Your actual job duties will play quite a role in the type of income protection that you can get and the best insurer for you. You could be a yacht captain, officer, chef, deckhand, chief engineer, the list is quite long.

To figure out the right income protection for you based upon your work, we would be checking with you:

• How long are you outside the UK per journey?
• How many trips to do you do each year?
• What is your job title?
• Are you using any heavy machinery, working at heights, diving?
• Have you had any time off work due to your health in the last few years?

All of these things will determine which insurer is going to be best for your income protection.

Yacht Crew Life Insurance and Critical Illness Cover

Taking a little side step to other insurance all the things that I have mentioned above can also influence your options for life insurance and critical illness cover. You will find that you if you are doing a non-manual job you should be able to get standard terms for life insurance and critical illness cover, as long as you aren’t travelling anywhere risky!

Our multi award winning advisers will find you the right income protection policy and insurer, to give you peace of mind for the future. Get a no obligation quotation from us today.