The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs June 1 through November 30, but the relevant planning deadline is earlier — often by a wide margin. Popular boatyards in Florida and the Eastern Caribbean reach capacity for pre-booked haul-out spaces in April and May, before the season formally opens. Boat owners who wait until a named storm is forming to look for a yard find that availability has already disappeared. The planning has to happen in the off-season, not during it.
What Your Insurance Policy Actually Requires
Marine insurance policies in hurricane-prone areas — Florida, the Gulf Coast, the Eastern Seaboard, and the Caribbean — have become increasingly specific about what you must do when a storm threatens, and when. The requirements fall into three general categories: a documented storm plan, a named-storm haul-out requirement, and the policy's timing rules.
The Documented Storm Plan
Many marine insurers now require that you file a hurricane plan as part of the policy — not just know what you'd do, but have it documented and submitted. A hurricane plan typically specifies where the boat will go (haul-out yard, named marina with documented storm protocol, or a specific anchorage with approved holding), what actions you'll take when a watch or warning is issued, and who is responsible for executing the plan if you're not aboard. Without a filed plan, some carriers can deny claims on the grounds that you didn't meet the policy's risk management requirements.
Check your actual policy language — not the summary, the full policy document — for "hurricane plan," "named storm," and "haul-out requirement" sections. If your policy is ambiguous, call your underwriter and ask directly what is required when a named storm is within 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours of your location.
The Named-Storm Deductible
Hurricane deductibles are separate from your standard deductible and are typically much higher. They range from 2% to 10% of your boat's insured value — meaning on a $200,000 boat, your out-of-pocket exposure before the policy pays starts at $4,000 on the low end and can reach $20,000 on the high end. Better policies generally offer 2–3% hurricane deductibles; policies written on the cheap end of the market commonly run 7–10%.
Some carriers have restructured their deductible formulas following active hurricane seasons. Before you renew, ask specifically what your named-storm deductible is and how it's calculated — not just the headline rate, but whether it's applied per storm or per season, and whether it differs for a direct hit versus a glancing blow.
The 30-Day Rule
A commonly applied requirement across multiple carriers: hurricane coverage must be in place at least 30 days before a storm forms, and insurers will not write new coverage or add named-storm endorsements once the National Weather Service begins issuing storm advisories. This means you cannot buy hurricane coverage in June to cover a storm that's already in the forecast. The window to ensure your policy is hurricane-season-ready is before the season opens, not after it starts.
Haul-Out Costs: What to Expect
Haul-out costs for hurricane storage vary by boat size, facility, and region. The expense breaks into three components: the haulout itself (typically charged per foot of boat length or per lift capacity), the land storage fee (usually per foot per month, often with a minimum), and the blocking and jackstands fee.
At Florida boatyards in the main hurricane-storage corridor — the Indian River, Sarasota Bay, and inland river facilities like Indiantown — storage runs roughly $8–$15 per foot per month on land. A 40-foot boat stored five months (June through October) costs $1,600–$3,000 in storage fees, plus haul-out and re-launch charges that commonly run $15–$25 per foot each way. Total cost for a 40-footer for a full season: $2,500–$4,500 depending on the yard and location.
Some boatyards offer hurricane club memberships that guarantee haul-out access in exchange for a pre-season commitment. Indiantown Marina's program charges a $3,000 registration fee that reserves haul-out time and yard space — a real number, but one that guarantees availability when other facilities are full and you have a 48-hour window before a named storm makes landfall. Hurricane dockage at Indiantown runs $3.00 per foot per night with a seven-day minimum, payable in advance.
Caribbean Haul-Out Options
The Eastern Caribbean has approximately two dozen boatyards capable of handling offshore cruising boats, clustered from Sint Maarten in the north to Trinidad in the south. Caribbean Compass magazine publishes an updated annual haul-out directory; the 2026 edition lists key facilities with lift capacity, storage rates, and haul-out procedures.
Noteworthy Caribbean facilities include Bobby's Marina in Sint Maarten (60-boat capacity), Jolly Harbour in Antigua (240-boat capacity), North Sound Marina in Antigua (150-ton lift with a hurricane-resistant refit shed), and the Trinidad cluster — Power Boats, Crews Inn, and Industrial Marine Services — which sits below the typical hurricane track and receives significant overflow from islands farther north.
Trinidad in particular has developed a reputation as a reliable hurricane hole partly because it sits close enough to the equator that most named storms track north of it. The facilities there fill up by May for cruisers planning to spend hurricane season in the country. Booking in March or April is standard practice; waiting until June means taking whatever is left, which may be the least-protected storage areas in the yard.
When Policies Reimburse Haul-Out Costs
A meaningful number of marine insurance policies now include partial reimbursement for haul-out costs when a named storm watch or warning is issued for your area. Coverage varies significantly — some policies reimburse up to 50% of haul-out and re-launch costs, others cover a fixed dollar amount, others cover nothing. This is worth knowing in advance, not after the fact.
The reimbursement typically applies only to precautionary haul-outs triggered by an official named storm watch — not to routine seasonal storage. Read the applicable policy clause carefully. Some clauses require that the watch cover your specific area; others are triggered by a watch anywhere within a specified radius. The deductible may or may not apply to the haul-out reimbursement claim separately from any storm damage claim.
The Booking Timeline That Actually Works
Experienced hurricane-country boat owners generally follow a sequence that starts earlier than most new arrivals expect. File your storm plan with your insurer before June 1 — some carriers send a form; others accept a written statement. Rehearse the execution: know who has a key to the boat, who calls the yard, and what sequence of steps gets the boat out of the water in 48 hours.
Contact your target boatyard in March or April for a reservation. Ask specifically about their notification protocol when a named storm enters the Gulf or Atlantic: how much notice do they need, what's their haul-out queue order, and what happens if the storm is a direct threat and they can't complete all scheduled lifts before landfall. A yard that has a clear answer to that last question is a yard that has thought seriously about the scenario.
Keep your haul-out documents — reservation confirmation, insurance policy hurricane section, storm plan — somewhere accessible aboard and as a digital copy accessible from shore. If you're evacuating the boat and the boat comes out of the water in a hurry, having those documents is relevant both for managing the situation at the yard and for any subsequent insurance claim.