I recently, and admittedly a bit reluctantly, insured an open water swim marathon event/challenge - and found it to be fairly painless. I don't consider myself an open water event director but as interest grew in the swims, I started taking a closer look at insurance. There are about 31 swimmers signed up to swim approximately 970 open water statute miles over a period of 4 days cumulatively. My focus has been recruiting kayaks and SUP paddlers. Fortunately we have more paddlers than swimmers which was a goal and perhaps a factor in evaluating the swim. The swims also occur during the week and start fairly early in the morning with lower boat traffic. Perhaps another consideration in the underwriters evaluation. I was asked to provide a safety plan to the insurance company which I did. It was not painful, just basics borrowed from the wisdom of other race directors and online examples of what a safety plan looks like. I was not asked to provide prop guards for boats as a condition of insurance. I found the insurance to be inexpensive, a little over $200 per day. It's unfortunate that the illusory monster of insuring an open water swimming event can be overstated so easily.
I recently, and admittedly a bit reluctantly, insured an open water swim marathon event/challenge - and found it to be fairly painless. I don't consider myself an open water event director but as interest grew in the swims, I started taking a closer look at insurance. There are about 31 swimmers signed up to swim approximately 970 open water statute miles over a period of 4 days cumulatively. My focus has been recruiting kayaks and SUP paddlers. Fortunately we have more paddlers than swimmers which was a goal and perhaps a factor in evaluating the swim. The swims also occur during the week and start fairly early in the morning with lower boat traffic. Perhaps another consideration in the underwriters evaluation. I was asked to provide a safety plan to the insurance company which I did. It was not painful, just basics borrowed from the wisdom of other race directors and online examples of what a safety plan looks like. I was not asked to provide prop guards for boats as a condition of insurance. I found the insurance to be inexpensive, a little over $200 per day. It's unfortunate that the illusory monster of insuring an open water swimming event can be overstated so easily.
