The account had been placed by the previous agent over several years, one policy at a time. Hull coverage with one carrier. Marine General Liability (MGL) with another. Property through a standard market. Workers’ Comp (WC) with a third carrier. An umbrella placed separately. On paper, it looked complete.
When the new agent took over at renewal and started asking questions, the picture changed. The hull policy excluded coverage while vessels were out of the water for maintenance. The MGL had a watercraft exclusion that applied to owned vessels. The property policy covered the building and equipment but had a sublimit for docks and piers that hadn't been updated in six years. And the umbrella didn't follow form over the MGL because the underlying forms didn't meet the umbrella carrier's requirements.
Nobody had done anything wrong. Each policy had been placed in good faith. But they had never been designed to work together, and the gaps between them were significant. A fuel spill during a haul-out would have exposed the account to uninsured liability from three different directions simultaneously.
The agent brought the account to LIG, a commercial marine MGA with access to coordinated marine package programs built for exactly this situation. A marine package program replaced the patchwork, the coverage gaps closed, and the premium came in lower than the sum of the separate policies.
Download our Marine Package Program Field Guide
Why Piecemeal Commercial Marine Placements Create Coverage Gaps
Standard markets place commercial marine risks the way they place everything else: one coverage at a time, each policy optimized for its own scope. That works for accounts where the exposures are simple and self-contained. It breaks down for waterfront business accounts where exposures overlap, interact, and change depending on what a vessel is doing and where it is at any given moment. The result is a marine insurance gap that nobody sees until a claim makes it visible.
The specific failure points that appear most often on inherited marine accounts:
The specific failure points that appear most often on inherited marine accounts:
- Watercraft exclusions on MGL policies that apply to vessels the client owns or operates, leaving a gap that neither the hull nor the P&I policies fill
- Property policies that sublimit or exclude docks, piers, and waterfront structures that represent significant value
- Hull policies with gaps during haul-out, maintenance periods, or transits not covered under the base form
- Umbrella policies that don't follow form over marine underlying policies, leaving excess exposure above the point where the umbrella attaches
- Marine workers' compensation and Longshore coverage that hasn't been reviewed since operations changed, with employees now qualifying for different jurisdictional coverage than what was originally placed
What a Marine Package Program Actually Does
A marine package program isn't just bundled coverage with a single premium. It's coordinated marine coverage designed to work as a system, with forms that coordinate across lines and limits that stack correctly. The practical difference shows up at claim time, when a loss triggers multiple coverages and the question becomes which policy responds and in what order.On a properly structured marine package, that question has a clear answer. On a piecemeal placement, it often doesn't.
Marine package programs are particularly valuable on accounts that standard markets find difficult to place cleanly, and on commercial marine accounts that have grown beyond their original coverage structure. The accounts that benefit most:Mixed operations spanning vessel, waterfront, and land-based exposures
- Multiple coverage lines that need to coordinate at the edges
- Operations that have grown or changed since coverage was originally structured
- Accounts where the current premium is high relative to what an integrated program would cost
- Any account where nobody has reviewed how the policies interact since they were placed
How to Evaluate an Inherited Marine Account
Before renewing a marine account you've inherited, these questions are worth working through:
- Does the MGL policy have a watercraft exclusion, and if so, what does it exclude? Owned vessel liability needs to be covered somewhere. If the hull policy doesn't pick it up and MGL excludes it, there's a gap.
- How are docks, piers, and waterfront structures valued and covered? Sublimits set years ago often don't reflect current replacement costs.
- Are there gaps in hull coverage during haul-out or maintenance? Many standard hull forms have restrictions that leave vessels exposed during the periods when they're most vulnerable to damage.
- Does the umbrella follow form over all underlying marine policies? If the underlying forms don't meet the umbrella's requirements, the excess layer doesn't attach correctly.
- Has the workforce structure changed since Longshore and WC were last reviewed? Operations that have expanded to include more vessel work may have employees who now qualify under different jurisdictional coverage.
Not sure where to start? We put together a two-page field guide that walks through exactly what to look for on an inherited marine account, plus how the five core coverage lines work together in a package.
Download the Marine Package Program Field Guide
Have an account you'd like us to look at? Reach us at Ask@LIGMarine.com or call (727) 578-2800. Send submissions to Submit@LIGMarine.com or visit LIGMarine.com/Apps.
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