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Syndicate Risk Management Group (SRMG)
Aerial view of a superyacht refit shipyard at golden hour

Shipyards & Builders

When a $200M yacht is in your slings.

The yachts in your yard are somebody else's assets — insured, subrogated against, and lawyered up before you've finished your coffee. Standard commercial policies don't understand this. They're designed for the moment a hardware store gets flooded, not the moment a superyacht slips off a travel lift, a fuel spill closes your operation, or a subcontractor's injury triggers three claims across three legal frameworks at once. Our shipyard programmes are built for those moments. Every wording drafted against how your yard actually operates. When it goes wrong — and eventually, it goes wrong — we stand between you and a nine-figure argument.

$0.2B+
In vessels under yard care insured
0+
Shipyards under programme
<0 hrs
Claims mobilisation on vessel damage
ANATOMY OF A YARD · WHERE THE RISK LIVES
Superyacht in dry dock with scaffolding at blue hour
01 — IN DRY DOCK

Every hull is somebody else's asset.

A dropped mast, a scratched paint job, a flooded engine room — the owner's insurer isn't your friend after an incident.

How SRLL protects you
Marine travel lift carrying a luxury superyacht in slings
02 — ON THE LIFT

Every crane cycle is a single point of failure.

Travel lifts, gantries, dry dock gates. When they fail, your whole operation stops — and the vessel damage claims start immediately.

How Property cover holds
THE EXPOSURE

Four things that keep yard directors awake.

01

Vessel Custody & Control

Every vessel in your slings, on your dry dock, or moored at your quay is a subrogation target the moment something happens. A dropped rig, a scratched hull, a flooded engine room — the yacht owner's insurer isn't your friend after an incident. SRLL structured against your specific work orders is what stands between you and a nine-figure argument.

Recent claim: 65m superyacht paint damage during a haul-out. SRLL responded on presentation, third-party subrogation coordinated, $1.4M settlement, no litigation. Client retained the yard for the next refit.
02

Specialised Infrastructure

Travel lifts, gantry cranes, welding rigs, fuel dock systems, dry dock gates, tender pontoons. Every piece of equipment is a single-point-of-failure that can halt yard throughput and cascade into vessel damage claims. Property cover structured against real replacement cost, plus BI tied to your actual seasonal revenue.

Recent claim: gantry crane hydraulic failure mid-cycle. Property replacement, business interruption for 27-day repair window, and a vessel damage claim from the yacht being handled all coordinated in one settlement.
03

Environmental Regulations

Anti-fouling paint removal. Metal grit containment. Bilge water management. Fuel transfer operations. The regulatory framework grows every year and the fines grow faster. Pollution and environmental liability structured against real-world enforcement patterns — not the theoretical statutory minimum.

Recent claim: anti-fouling runoff during a hull job triggered state environmental investigation. Defence cover for the enforcement action + remediation + statutory fines all handled inside the single programme.
04

Labour Exposures

Yard workers, subcontractors, tradespeople rotating in and out. USL&H for federal waters, state comp for adjacent land, Jones Act if any of your work touches an active vessel — three regimes, one workforce, one claim that could bridge all of them. Cover integrated across every framework.

Recent claim: rigger injured while working on a vessel in your dry dock. USL&H benefits initiated, state comp coordinated, Jones Act pre-empted properly — one claim navigated across three frameworks without gap or overlap.
THE PROGRAMME

Cover written against your work orders, not off a shelf.

01

Ship Repairers Legal Liability (SRLL)

The core cover. Damage to customer vessels during repairs, refits, retrofits, maintenance, sea trials, and warranty work while under your care, custody, and control. Structured against your specific work orders and yard agreements — written against your work orders, subcontractor arrangements, and sea trial protocols.

Wordings adapted to your specific yard agreements, subcontractor arrangements, and sea trial protocols. We audit the wording against your actual contract stack before renewal — no surprises at claim time.
02

Builders Risk Programmes

For newbuild construction, refit projects, and major structural modifications. Secures the hull, onboard systems, and machinery from keel-laying through sea trials, delivery, and warranty phase. Structured against your actual build contract and delivery schedule.

Coverage that follows the project timeline — including sea trial phase, delivery, and warranty period. LEG3 wordings available. Placed with Lloyd's specialty markets who actually write yacht Builders Risk.
03

Yard Property & Equipment

Travel lifts, gantry cranes, dry docks, fuel systems, workshops, chandlery inventory, and office facilities. Named perils plus hurricane, storm surge, and named-storm cover where your geography demands. Ordinance-and-law endorsement standard.

Full replacement cost basis — not depreciated actual cash value. Business interruption tied to your actual seasonal revenue curve, not annualised averages that leave you short during peak season.
04

Pollution & Environmental Liability

Clean-up, containment, statutory fines, third-party damages, and defence cover for regulatory investigations. Includes anti-fouling runoff, grit blasting residues, bunker spills, and long-term contamination discovery. One integrated stack.

Includes first-party clean-up, third-party damages, statutory fines, and — most importantly — defence cover for regulatory investigations. Most standard yard policies cap defence costs tightly. Ours don't.
THE APPROACH

Your yard is too complex for a boilerplate. We don't sell boilerplates.

Every shipyard is different. Different customer vessels. Different work order profiles. Different infrastructure vintage. Different regulatory environment. Different labour force composition. A standard industrial commercial package doesn't recognise any of that — it insures your yard the same way it insures a hardware store. Ours doesn't. Every clause is drafted against the yard we're actually placing cover for.

Standard commercial yard package
  • SRLL with market-standard boilerplate
  • Property at depreciated actual cash value
  • Business interruption annualised — misses peak season
  • Environmental cover with tight defence cost sublimits
  • Generic underwriter, no yard-specialist adjuster
SRMG shipyard programme
  • SRLL drafted against your specific work orders and contracts
  • Property on full replacement cost basis
  • BI matched to your actual seasonal revenue curve
  • Environmental with defence cover outside the aggregate
  • Marine-specialist adjusters and Lloyd's-market wordings
Welding sparks close-up during a superyacht refit
CASE STUDY

The paint damage claim that became a $22M relationship.

When a 65-metre motoryacht sustained paint damage during a routine haul-out at one of our client yards, the standard playbook would have been untenable. The owner's insurer subrogates against the yard. The yard denies. Litigation drags. The client relationship burns.Instead, our SRLL responded on presentation. Because the wording had been drafted specifically against the yard's haul-out protocols and work orders, there was no argument to have about care, custody, or control. Third-party subrogation was coordinated between insurers directly. Settlement was reached inside eight weeks at $1.4M — including a paint respray at a facility of the owner's choosing.

  • SRLL wording drafted against actual haul-out protocols
  • Direct insurer-to-insurer subrogation — no litigation, no adversarial position
  • Full respray at a facility of the owner's choosing
  • Settlement inside eight weeks, on the yard's terms

Result: The claim didn't just settle. It earned the yard a $22M refit booking six months later — because the owner saw how the claim was handled.

MEDITERRANEAN REFIT YARD · 220 EMPLOYEES · SPRING 2024

The owner's captain called me at seven the next morning to say the settlement offer was on his desk before he'd even reached the yacht. He came back to us six months later with a full refit brief. I sent the team a case of Barolo.
YARD DIRECTOR · MEDITERRANEAN SUPERYACHT REFIT FACILITY · 🇮🇹
THE FIRM

Why leading shipyards trust SRMG

  • Decades dedicated exclusively to marine risks — we understand yard operations, not just yard property
  • Direct lines to Lloyd's marine syndicates and specialty markets — SRLL and Builders Risk wordings other brokers can't access
  • Compliance integration at placement — MARPOL, EPA, state coastal management, local port authority
  • Claims teams experienced with layered liabilities — coordinating vessel owners, their insurers, port authorities, and yard counsel simultaneously
  • Independent since 1990. Every renewal, we go back to market. Every time.

Your yard deserves cover built around your work orders.

Complimentary review of your current shipyard programme — SRLL wording audit, Builders Risk gap analysis, environmental exposure review. No obligation.

Request a Yard Programme Review Call +1 (305) 500 0844
Frequently asked

Shipyard insurance questions

Shipyards need Ship Repairer's Legal Liability, Builders Risk (during construction), Marine General Liability, Pollution Liability, and USL&H Workers' Compensation. SRMG places shipyard programmes with third-party yacht value clauses that reflect actual asset values in slings — not the standard commercial-policy assumption that everything on-site is the yard's own inventory. That distinction is worth eight figures on a busy yard.