Who pays to remove or salvage your boat if it sinks or runs aground?

You do. Under the federal Maritime Law the owner must remove a wreck from UAE waters within 60 days and stays liable for all the costs.¹ Your policy can pay this, if its liability section includes wreck removal.

What must you do if your boat becomes a wreck?

Remove it within 60 days of the date it became a wreck. The Ministry can shorten that period if the wreck blocks navigation or threatens safety or the environment. If you do not act, the Ministry or the local authority can remove it, and you “shall remain liable for all expenses of removing shipwreck … and for any compensation arising therefrom”.¹ The authority can also sell the wreck to recover what it is owed.¹

A boat counts as a wreck if it is sunk, stranded or abandoned, or about to sink or run aground with nothing being done. It also counts as a wreck if its insurance against marine damage and liabilities has expired.¹

The cost of removing a wreck is one of the claims an owner cannot limit under the law’s limitation rules.¹

Report a wreck at once. Dubai fines an owner or master AED 2,000 for not reporting the wreckage, damage or destruction of a vessel.²

Does your policy pay for wreck removal?

Only if your liability section covers it and has a limit.

• GIG Gulf. Section 2 pays what you legally have to pay for “raising or attempted raising, removing or destroying the wreck of Your boat or if You fail to remove or destroy it”, within your third-party limit.³
• Institute Yacht Clauses (Sukoon, Arabia). Clause 11.1.3 covers liability for raising, removing or destroying the wreck, and clause 11.5 adds removal from a place you own or lease. Both apply only when a liability sum is stated in the schedule.⁴⁵
• Al Buhaira. Lists “legally required wreck-removal expenses, subject to applicable limits”.⁶
• Al Wathba. Lists wreck removal liability as an optional cover.⁷

Check that your schedule shows a liability limit and that wreck removal is not deleted.

Who else must have wreck removal cover?

Vessels of 300 gross tons or more need insurance or bank security for wreck removal before they may enter a UAE port or berth.⁸ In Dubai, licensed charter firms must hold a policy covering wreck removal,⁹ and a visiting foreign yacht’s policy must include removing the wreck.¹⁰

What can a salvor charge you?

A fair reward, but only if the salvage works, and never more than the value of what was saved. If the salvage fails, you pay the salvor’s expenses. The reward is agreed between you or set by a court, and a court can cancel or change a salvage agreement made under pressure of danger if its terms are unfair. No reward is due for saving lives alone. A salvage claim must be brought within one year of the end of the work.¹

Your policy pays salvage as part of the loss. GIG Gulf pays “the reasonable costs of saving Your boat” from an insured loss, even above the sum insured.³ Under the Institute Yacht Clauses, salvage is recoverable as a loss by the insured cause.⁴

Before you sign a salvage agreement, call your insurer if you can, and keep a copy of what you sign.

The small print

• Wrecks. Articles 232, 233 and 234 of Federal Decree-Law No. 43 of 2023. The limitation exception is Article 81(5).¹
• Salvage. Article 244 (reward and expenses), 247 (agreed or set by court), 248 (special compensation where the environment is at risk, with an uplift normally capped at 30% of expenses), 250 (no reward for saving life alone), 251 (unfair agreements) and 253 (one-year bar).¹
• Abu Dhabi. A no-objection certificate to remove a vessel wreck costs AED 500, and damaging, abandoning or neglecting a vessel without reason is fined AED 10,000.¹¹
• Other rules. Article 4 of Cabinet Resolution No. 71 of 2021;⁸ Article 41(2) of Dubai’s Executive Council Resolution No. 11 of 2013.⁹