BajaNomad

Need a recommendation for a boat towing service/Mulege to TJ or San Diego (23'er)

CasaManzana - 9-17-2011 at 01:02 PM

My insurance carrier will not insure my 23' fishing boat attached to my truck in Mexico, so I need someone with towing insurance to get it to CA (or maybe just to TJ or Tecate). Any recommendation greatly appreciated here or U2U-

tiotomasbcs - 9-17-2011 at 06:22 PM

Discover Baja/ Vagas can't help?? Hell for a Grand I'll take it north! Oh yeah,my Honda Civic kicks ass! Tio Bump!

[Edited on 9-18-2011 by tiotomasbcs]

mulegejim - 9-17-2011 at 08:08 PM

Might consider changing insurance carriers. A friend of mine recently used my truck to tow his boat from San Diego to Mulege - Lewis and Lewis issued me a rider for him towing the boat. I can't remember the cost but it wasn't much (about $35 comes to mind) and I believe it was good for 30 days. Jim

[Edited on 9-18-2011 by mulegejim]

[Edited on 9-18-2011 by mulegejim]

Bob and Susan - 9-18-2011 at 05:48 AM

the mayorals in town will take it to the border
but it will cost a little more

they have a place they can drop it at otay mesa
on the tj side
a parking lot that is safe

they'd load it on a flatbed

these guys are professionals and it would be safe with them

Pescador - 9-18-2011 at 07:59 AM

Jim, are you sure you can not get straight liability rider on your Mexican policy? Most of the companies do not provide collision and theft, but if your boat is insured with Progressive and you have a Mexican policy for liability you are covered completely.

mulegejim - 9-19-2011 at 06:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pescador
Jim, are you sure you can not get straight liability rider on your Mexican policy? Most of the companies do not provide collision and theft, but if your boat is insured with Progressive and you have a Mexican policy for liability you are covered completely.


Lot of Jims in this thread, anyway, what you describe is pretty much my situation with one little twist. My friend has insurance with Progressive for the boat and trailer - I happen to have Mexican insurance on my truck through Lewis and Lewis. After talking to both insurances we pretty much did as you indicate above. I got a rider through L&L for $35 and the problem was solved I far as I know, as there were no incidents along the way to test the coverage, however, both Progressive and L&L indicated this was the correct way to go. By the way, it was OK even though I was not along for the trip. Mulege Jim

Pescador - 9-19-2011 at 07:58 AM

I will try to explain why this is so. Progressive is a US company that can only write Liability insurance for the US. They can cover Collision and Theft but only under their US provision and claim payment. For Liability, while on the roads in Mexico you have to have a Mexican policy like Seguros through Lewis and Lewis or Discover Baja which covers you in the event that you have an accident and hit someone or run over some one's cow. Because there are a whole different set of laws and regulations, the insurance for the Liability portion needs to be a Mexican company.

Now, here comes the interesting part (from experience, sadly) and that is you are not going to be covered under your Mexican policy for theft or collision unless you are towing your boat and it is connected to the insured vehicle. Qualitas even admitted that if I stopped for lunch and someone hooked up the boat and stole it that it probably would not be covered under the collision portion of the policy.

So, what I learned to do was to carry a rider on my Mexican policy for Liability which covers me in the event that I have an accident or run over something or someone. If I have collision and theft on the towing vehicle with Mexican Insurance then I am probably covered if the whole rig gets stolen (like one of the Nomads in Ensenada), but to make sure I am really covered for theft I carry a policy with Progressive on the boat.

latina - 9-19-2011 at 08:21 AM

Sadly, I can also confirm what Pescador is saying about Mexican insurance.

If you hire someone else to tow your boat and THEY steal it, it is not covered under the theft portion of your policy, because you gave them authority to take your boat. That is a fact that we found out the hard way.

If the boat is stolen from the transporter, they will only consider it to be theft if there is violence involved, ie. that it can be proven by police report that the boat was forcibly taken by the transporter, while hooked up to his truck and I suspect even then they will try to wiggle out of covering you because you gave the person your property and HIS insurance should cover it.

If you hire someone, make sure THEY take out transporting insurance on your property, check the papers yourself and phone the company to verify that it is a valid policy.

Our ignorance about Mexican insurance and our blind trust in our boat transporter cost us $10,000.00 that we will never get back.

If you want to be covered for theft, do the transporting yourself! We had lots of experience towing a 5th wheel up and down the Baja and in hindsight our lives would have been much simpler if we had just done the job ourselves!

Oh yes, and did I mention the transporter's name was also Jim???

[Edited on 9-19-2011 by latina]