Hurricane provisions are where a Florida watercraft policy differs most from one written anywhere else in the country, and they are the part of the policy owners are least likely to have read. The time to read them is now, not when a cone appears on the forecast.
What a haul-out provision actually does
Many policies written here will reimburse part of the cost of hauling, moving or securing a boat once a named storm is forecast for the area. It is not a blank cheque. There is usually a cap, usually a share you pay yourself, and almost always a trigger: the provision only responds once the storm has a name and a watch or warning covers the water your boat sits in.
Some carriers go further and require a written hurricane plan on file before the provision applies at all. That plan is not complicated. It names where the boat will go, who will move it, and how long that takes. What it does is establish, in advance, that you had a plan rather than an intention, and the carrier that asked for it is the carrier most likely to pay for it.
Layup periods and navigational limits
Two clauses decide where and when you are covered, and both are easy to breach without knowing. A navigational limit describes the water the policy applies to, drawn as a distance offshore or as a named area. A layup period is a stretch of the year during which the boat is meant to be out of the water or not in use, in exchange for a lower premium.
Neither is a problem until they no longer describe how the boat is used. A policy written for a boat that lived in another state, or written before you started running further offshore, can carry limits that made sense then and do not now. That mismatch surfaces at the worst possible moment, which is the claim.
Before the season, not during it
Three things are worth checking while the water is flat. Whether your policy carries a named-storm provision and what it requires of you. Whether the navigational limits and any layup period still match how and where you use the boat. And whether the hull is insured at agreed value or actual cash value, because on an older hull that difference is most of a total loss.
Bring the declarations page to any of our offices and we will read the warranties with you. It takes twenty minutes and it is the cheapest hour of the season.