A group of legislators wants Minnesota law to require that all boat insurance policies also cover the owner’s family. Courtney Godfrey, who lost her foot in a 2017 boating mishap, says she decided when she found out about the loophole, “I have to protect other Minnesota boat owners from going through what is already a nightmare, and then coming to find out for all these years I’ve paid into this plan and it doesn’t do what I thought it did.”
Bob Johnson with the Insurance Federation of Minnesota responds boat insurance covers injury to a third party or damage to their vessel, but extending it to the boat owner’s family will only cause legal battles with insurance companies. Johnson warns it will be “a husband against a wife, a spouse against another spouse, suing for pain and suffering damages. That’s what this whole thing is about.” Johnson says Godfrey’s situation is tragic but it’s not good public policy to change current Minnesota law.