What Insurance Does a Yacht Need for Its Crew?

Which policy pays when a yacht crew member is ill, injured or has to go home?

Does a standard yacht policy cover your crew?

Not on its base liability section. The yacht wording we read excludes injury to anyone you employ, crew or not, and any benefit a statute requires. Hired crew come back only through a crew-liability extension that the schedule has to show, and the crew limit is not extra money: it sits inside the same combined single limit as every other liability claim.

For a US owner, that shared limit is the part to watch. A crew claim erodes the limit that also has to answer a collision or a guest injury, and in the wording the extension's own deductible applies to each crew claim. You can read how the crew and passenger extensions read in the wording on our charter company page.

Medical Payments is not crew medical cover. In the wording we read, it pays reasonable medical or funeral costs for third parties hurt aboard or boarding, it is excess over any other insurance, and it excludes your employees and anyone a compensation statute should cover. It can answer for an unpaid friend. Your captain needs the crew-liability extension.

What does MLC 2006 make an owner pay when crew fall ill or are injured?

MLC 2006 binds a yacht "ordinarily engaged in commercial activities", which is the Convention's own test in Article II(4). The UK, Malta and the Marshall Islands read private yachts as outside it, so the duties below fall on the owner of a commercially operated yacht under an MLC flag. Where they apply, the owner pays for medical care, board and lodging, wages and burial, and must hold security for death and long-term disability.

The Convention itself never names yachts. The private-yacht exclusion is each flag's reading of "commercial activities", so the flag counts as much as the use.

What MLC 2006 makes an owner pay when crew fall ill or are injured, clause by clause

The duty	The MLC clause	The minimum	Can a flag limit it?
Medical care, medicines, and board and lodging away from home	Standard A4.2.1(1)(c)	Until recovery, or until the condition is declared permanent	Yes, but never below 16 weeks (A4.2.1(2))
Full wages while aboard and until repatriated	Standard A4.2.1(3)(a)	Full wages	No limit for this stage
Wages after the crew member is landed or repatriated	Standard A4.2.1(3)(b)	As national law or a collective agreement sets	Yes, but never below 16 weeks (A4.2.1(4))
Burial costs for a death during the engagement	Standard A4.2.1(1)(d)	The cost of burial	No
Financial security for death and long-term disability	Standard A4.2.1(1)(b), (11)	A certificate carried on board	No; 30 days' notice before it ceases (A4.2.1(12))
Medical care on board	Regulation 4.1	In principle at no cost to the crew member	Applied through national law

MLC also lets a flag exclude three things in Standard A4.2.1(5): "injury incurred otherwise than in the service of the ship", injury or sickness from the crew member's own wilful misconduct, and "sickness or infirmity intentionally concealed when the engagement is entered into". That is a permission, not a rule. The UK, for example, has the owner pay first and then recover the cost from the crew member under regulation 43(8) of SI 2014/1613, and it caps medical costs and off-ship wages at 16 weeks.

The owner carries the duty either way. P&I or a crew-liability policy is the money behind it.

This is general information, not legal advice. Check the position for your own yacht with your flag administration.

Who pays a crew member's flight home?

An ordinary flight home at the end of a contract is the owner's cost, not an insurance claim. Crew liability cover responds when the reason is illness or injury, and abandonment security only when the owner cannot pay, after which the provider can recover what it paid from the owner.

Under Regulation 2.5 of MLC 2006, crew have a right to be repatriated at no cost to themselves. The owner may not take a payment in advance or deduct the fare from wages, unless national law finds the crew member in serious default (Standard A2.5.1(3)). If the owner fails, the flag State arranges the journey and recovers the cost from the owner.

Under Standard A2.5.2(12) the provider takes over the crew's rights against the owner up to what it paid, and one P&I club's 2021 terms we read require the owner to reimburse the club in full. So the certificate helps the crew, and the owner still ends up paying.

The 500 GT line in MLC governs who must carry the abandonment certificate on board: ships of 500 GT and over on international voyages, or any ship whose owner opts in. It does not limit the duty to repatriate, and the death and disability certificate has no tonnage link at all. For which certificate a yacht carries, and who issues it, see what insurance certificates a yacht needs.

Crew medical plan, P&I and personal accident: which pays first, and where is the gap?

A crew medical plan commonly pays for treatment first. The two wordings we read make the yacht's liability cover pay only after any other insurance. That order is set by each policy's wording, not by a general rule, so check yours. Where it applies, the medical plan responds and the liability layer picks up what the owner is legally or contractually liable for beyond it. The seafarer employment agreement is what decides that second part, which is why the contract should spell out the cover in plain terms.

The MLC permissions in Standard A4.2.1(5) open two gaps.

1. 1Injured ashore, off duty. A flag may exclude "injury incurred otherwise than in the service of the ship". Here the medical plan or personal accident pays, not the yacht's liability cover.
2. 2A condition not disclosed at hiring. A flag may exclude "sickness or infirmity intentionally concealed". A 2023 Dockwalk explainer walks through a hypothetical case: a crew member who did not disclose a condition on the medical questions, a medical plan that declines, and then P&I declining too.

Personal accident works another way. It pays a fixed benefit for accidental death or disablement whoever is at fault, so it fills the space the two fault-based layers leave.

Medical evacuation depends on who is on board.

Does a private yacht need crew insurance, and what changes on a charter yacht?

Use, not size, decides. A yacht used only for its owner's pleasure is outside MLC on the flags below, so no MLC certificate is required, although the owner still carries liability to anyone they employ. A yacht that earns money is in a different position, and each flag decides where the line falls.

The UK's employers' liability duty turns on business, not flag. Under section 1 of the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, an employer carrying on business in Great Britain must insure against injury to employees arising out of their employment in Great Britain in that business, and the 1998 Regulations exempt an employer insured with a shipowners' mutual association that holds its certificate. Our commercial craft insurance page covers the UK commercial side.

In the US, a crew member who qualifies as a seaman can sue the employer under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. §30104, and is owed maintenance and cure, a separate duty under general maritime law. Our marine business insurance page sets out who counts as a seaman.

This is general information, not legal advice. Flag rules change; check the current notice with your registry.

What should an owner or captain send when asking about cover for a crewed yacht?

Send the crew details with the yacht details. Crew cover is assessed on who the crew are, what their contracts promise and how the yacht is used, so an enquiry without them comes back with questions.

1. The crew list, with each person's role, nationality and pay.
2. The employment agreements, or the standard terms you use.
3. The flag, the gross tonnage, and whether the yacht is private or commercially operated.
4. Any existing crew medical plan, with its evacuation limit and its other-insurance terms.
5. Whether any crew are US-based or the yacht spends time in US waters.
6. The certificates the yacht carries now, with their expiry dates.

World Yacht Insurance introduces your enquiry. We are not an insurer and we carry no risk. The firm that arranges your cover is named in the documents you receive, and how it works explains the route. For a large crewed yacht, start with our superyacht insurance page.