Arkansas requires boat insurance. The minimum isn't close to enough.
Over 50 horsepower, or any personal watercraft, and state law says you need liability coverage — $50,000 per occurrence. That figure was set to make sure someone can pay something, not to make an injured passenger whole. It also does nothing for your own hull, your motor, your trailer or the electronics bolted to the console. Here's what a real boat policy covers, the settlement choice most owners never knowingly make, and where the trailer seam sits. We shop it across 40+ carriers.
The short answer
Arkansas requires liability insurance on any motorboat over 50 horsepower and on every personal watercraft, with a floor of $50,000 per occurrence — a limit that protects other people, thinly, and does nothing for your own boat. A real policy adds hull physical damage, trailer, equipment, uninsured boater, medical payments, towing and fuel-spill liability. The three decisions that matter are agreed value versus actual cash value, an equipment limit sized to your actual rigging, and liability set for a passenger injury rather than the state floor.
The law has a number. It's a floor, not a plan.
Required on any motorboat of more than 50 hp and on every personal watercraft regardless of engine size. Government-owned vessels are excepted. Proof has to be something you can carry aboard.
Per occurrence, not per person — and none of it is yours.
Arkansas Code § 27-101-207 makes it unlawful for an owner to allow a qualifying vessel to be operated uninsured, and the registration statutes back it up: the Department of Finance and Administration wants proof of insurance from a carrier authorized in Arkansas before it will issue or renew a certificate of number. If you're in an accident and can't produce proof, the law starts from the presumption that the boat was uninsured and leaves it to you to rebut.
Two things follow that owners rarely connect. First, $50,000 per occurrence is one bucket for the whole event — not $50,000 for each person in the other boat. A single ambulance ride, an ER visit and an orthopedic surgery can clear it before anyone talks about lost wages. Second, that limit is entirely third-party. It pays other people. It does not repair your hull, replace your outboard, or buy back your trailer. A boat carrying only the state minimum is a boat with no coverage on itself at all.
Everything the minimum leaves out.
A real boat policy is assembled from parts. Which ones are included, optional or unavailable varies by carrier, hull and horsepower.
Liability
Injuries and property damage you're responsible for on the water — another boat, a dock, a swimmer, a skier. Legal defense is usually included. Written well above the statutory floor on any boat that carries people.
Physical damage
Collision with another vessel, a dock or a submerged object, plus theft, fire, vandalism, hail, wind and sinking. This is the half of the policy the state minimum does not touch at all.
Trailer
Damage to the trailer itself, which is usually a separate item with its own limit rather than something folded in. Trailers get stolen off driveways and bent at ramps more than owners expect.
Equipment & rigging
Trolling motor, fish finders, GPS, depth finders, radios, towers, speakers, seating and covers. Often a large share of the boat's real value, and often capped by a small default limit unless the actual figure is listed.
Uninsured boater
Responds when the boat that hits you carries nothing, or carries the state minimum and runs out. In a state whose floor is $50,000 per occurrence, this coverage is doing more work than most owners realize.
On-water towing & fuel spill
A tow off the middle of Beaver Lake is not a roadside call, and it isn't cheap. Fuel-spill liability handles cleanup costs after a covered accident, which can outrun a modest liability limit on its own.
Agreed value or actual cash value.
Agreed value fixes the total-loss payout the day the policy is written. Actual cash value pays what the boat was worth the moment it sank, after depreciation. Both are legitimate. Only one of them is on your policy.
Neither is wrong. Not knowing which one you have is.
Agreed value costs more and removes the depreciation conversation entirely: a covered total loss pays the figure on the declarations page. It tends to fit newer boats, financed boats, and boats where the rigging and electronics represent real money. Actual cash value costs less and pays less — which can be a perfectly sound trade on an older, low-value hull where the premium difference outweighs the settlement difference.
The failure isn't picking the cheaper one. The failure is picking it by accident, because a quote came back lower and nobody said out loud what had been traded away. A boat is one of the few things people insure where a total loss is genuinely likely — it can sink, burn to the waterline, or be stolen off a trailer overnight — so the settlement basis is not an abstraction. We put both numbers in front of you and you choose.
The seam between your boat policy and your auto policy.
This one catches careful people. Damage to the trailer is generally the boat policy's job. Liability while you're towing it generally is not — if the trailer comes off on I-49 or you back into a truck at the ramp, that's your auto liability responding. Two policies, one trip, and the handoff happens at the moment the boat touches the water. Owners who assume a single policy covers the whole outing find the seam on the worst day of the season. We check both sides at the same time, and if there are assets behind you, we price a personal umbrella that can sit above both.
What we place on Northwest Arkansas water.
Carrier appetite varies sharply by hull type, horsepower, value and use. One market's preferred risk is another's decline — which is the whole argument for shopping it.
Bass & fishing boats
Where the equipment limit matters most. Trolling motors, graphs and electronics routinely add up to a serious fraction of the hull value, and tournament use is its own underwriting question.
Pontoons & deck boats
Built to carry people, which makes liability the headline rather than the hull. Guest capacity is the number to price against, not the boat's value.
Wake & ski boats
High value, high horsepower, and a towed-watersports exposure that some policies limit or exclude. Confirm the tow-sports language before the first weekend, not after.
Personal watercraft
The one category with no horsepower threshold — Arkansas requires liability on every PWC. Multiple skis, young operators and lending them to guests all change the placement.
Duck & flat-bottom boats
Seasonal, hard-used, and often carrying dogs, guns and gear that live outside the hull value. Cold-water operation and shallow-water damage are worth naming when we quote.
Cruisers & larger vessels
Above a certain length and value the placement moves toward true marine forms, with survey requirements, navigation limits and lay-up provisions that a package policy won't have.
What a boat policy won't do.
Three exclusions worth knowing before you assume you're covered.
Racing & competition
Organized racing, timed runs and speed events are excluded on most personal watercraft and boat forms, often including practice. Fishing tournaments are a separate question and worth asking about specifically rather than assuming either way.
Charter, rental & livery
Carrying passengers for hire, renting the boat out, guiding, or running it in a business is commercial use, and a personal policy generally won't respond. Arkansas sets a $500,000 liability requirement on personal watercraft liveries, which is a fair signal of how differently the state views that exposure.
Wear, rot & gradual damage
Insurance responds to sudden accidental loss, not to blistering, rot, corrosion, marine growth, a failed impeller or a motor that was never winterized. Freeze damage from skipped winterization is a common and avoidable denial in this climate.
Beaver Lake is not a pond, and a lake claim is not a car claim.
Most of the boating we insure happens on Beaver Lake, Table Rock, Lake Sequoyah, Lake Fayetteville, Lake Windsor and the White and Illinois Rivers — big, busy, wind-exposed water with holiday-weekend traffic, floating debris after a rain event, and hard-bottom hazards where the pool is down. Boats here also spend most of the year not boating. Where a boat is stored between October and April matters to both the premium and the claim: an uncovered driveway, an open lot at a marina and a locked shed are three different theft, hail and freeze risks, and carriers price them that way.
Storage is also where the honest conversation about winterization belongs. Freeze damage to a block or an outdrive is one of the most preventable losses in this line and one of the most commonly denied, because it reads as maintenance rather than as a sudden accident. It's cheaper to ask the question in July than to argue it in February.
Where we earn it.
The quiet mistakes on boat policies are liability left at or near the statutory floor, a settlement basis nobody explained, an equipment limit that was never totaled, and a trailer that exists on neither policy properly. We write the liability for a passenger injury rather than for a scraped gelcoat, put agreed value and actual cash value side by side so the choice is deliberate, list the rigging at its real number, close the trailer seam across the boat and auto policies, and check whether an umbrella can sit above the whole thing. We don't adjust your claim and can't overrule an adjuster — but we build the policy to respond, and we compare it across our 40+ carrier markets rather than one company's appetite.
Priced to the hull, not a sticker.
Premiums vary too widely for a single meaningful figure — a fourteen-foot jon boat with a tiller outboard and a twenty-four-foot wake boat with a tower, speakers and a full rigging package aren't comparable. Price turns on the hull type, length, value and age, horsepower and motor count, agreed value versus actual cash value, the equipment limit, where and how it's stored, where you run it, who operates it and their history, your limits and deductibles, and prior claims. That's why we price it to the boat rather than post a number. This isn't a quote or a guarantee. Tell us what you run and we'll build the real figure with you across our markets.
What usually sits next to it.
Boat and watercraft insurance questions.
Is boat insurance required in Arkansas?
Yes, for many boats. Arkansas Code § 27-101-207 makes it unlawful for the owner of a motorboat of more than 50 horsepower, or any personal watercraft, to allow it to be operated without a liability insurance policy carrying at least $50,000 of coverage per occurrence. Government-owned vessels are excepted.
Proof of insurance has to be something you can carry aboard, and if you are in an accident and cannot produce it, the law treats the boat as uninsured unless you rebut that. The Department of Finance and Administration also requires proof of insurance when you register or renew a qualifying boat. A boat of 50 horsepower or less that is not a personal watercraft sits outside the mandate, which is not the same thing as being safe to run uninsured.
Does my homeowners policy cover my boat?
Usually only in a very limited way, and only for small boats. A homeowners policy typically extends a small amount of physical damage coverage to a boat of modest length and horsepower, and it commonly excludes watercraft liability once the boat exceeds a stated engine size or is used away from the residence premises.
That carve-out was never designed for a bass boat with a 250 horsepower outboard, a pontoon full of guests, a wake boat with a tower and speakers, or a personal watercraft. The motor, the trailer, the electronics and the liability for injuring someone on the water are the four things a homeowners policy is least likely to handle, and they are the four largest numbers in a boating loss.
What is the difference between agreed value and actual cash value on a boat policy?
Agreed value fixes the payout for a total loss when the policy is written, so a covered total loss pays that figure without a depreciation argument. Actual cash value pays what the boat was worth at the moment of the loss, after depreciation, which usually costs less up front and pays less at claim time.
Neither one is automatically correct. Agreed value tends to suit newer boats, financed boats and boats with real money in electronics and rigging. Actual cash value can be reasonable on an older, low-value hull where the premium difference matters more than the settlement difference. What matters is that you chose it on purpose rather than discovering which one you have after the boat sinks.
Is my boat trailer covered?
Physical damage to the trailer itself is usually handled on the boat policy, and it often has to be added and given its own limit rather than being included automatically. Trailers are stolen, jackknifed and damaged during loading far more often than owners expect.
Liability while you are towing is a different policy. If the trailer breaks loose on the highway or you back into someone at the ramp, that is generally your auto liability responding, not the boat policy. Owners who assume one policy covers both halves of the trip are the ones who find the seam at the worst time.
What about my trolling motor, fish finder and electronics?
It depends on how they are listed. Trolling motors, fish finders, GPS units, depth finders, radios, towers, speakers and similar rigging can represent a large share of what a boat is actually worth, and a base policy may fold them into a small default limit or leave them out.
The fix is the same one that works everywhere else in this line. Add up what is actually mounted on the boat, tell us the number, and we set the equipment limit to match. Portable gear such as rods, reels and tackle is often treated separately again, so it is worth naming out loud.
How do I get a boat insurance quote in Northwest Arkansas?
Start a personal quote online or call (479) 286-1066. It moves faster if you have the year, make, model, length, horsepower and hull identification number, the trailer details, a value for the electronics and rigging, where the boat is stored, and where you run it.
We size the liability well above the state floor, decide agreed value against actual cash value on purpose, list the equipment at its real number, and compare it across our markets. If you charter it, rent it out or run it for a business, we will tell you that is a commercial placement rather than write a personal policy that will not respond.
If our coverage explainers are useful, mark Cribb Insurance as a preferred source so more Northwest Arkansas boat owners can find our local, plain-English guides.
Tell us what you run and where you run it.
Give us the hull, the horsepower, the trailer and an honest total on the electronics and rigging, and we'll set the liability for a passenger injury rather than the state floor, put agreed value and actual cash value side by side, close the trailer seam with your auto policy, and compare the whole thing across our markets. If you charter it or rent it out, we'll say so.
Cribb Insurance Group Inc. is an independent insurance agency licensed in Arkansas. This page describes boat, personal watercraft and recreational marine insurance in general, industry-standard terms for informational purposes only. It is not a policy, not an offer of insurance, and not a guarantee of coverage, availability, eligibility, or price.
Liability, physical damage, agreed value and actual cash value settlement, trailer, equipment and rigging, uninsured and underinsured boater, medical payments, on-water towing, fuel-spill liability and wreck removal coverages, along with limits, deductibles, navigation and lay-up provisions, covered causes of loss, and exclusions, are set by the carrier, vary by state and by policy and over time, are subject to the carrier's underwriting approval and eligibility, and apply only as written in the policy actually issued to you. Descriptions of what a homeowners policy does or does not cover are general; your own homeowners policy language controls. Racing and competition, charter and rental use, wear and tear, gradual deterioration, marine growth and mechanical breakdown are commonly excluded. Eligibility depends on the vessel, its value and condition, horsepower, use, storage, operators and prior claims.
Statements about Arkansas watercraft requirements summarize Ark. Code Ann. § 27-101-207 and related registration provisions and are general information, not legal advice. Statutes and agency requirements change; confirm current requirements with the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Federal, Corps of Engineers and local rules may impose additional requirements on specific waters. Any cost or coverage descriptions are general and illustrative, not a quote, and not a guarantee; your premium and coverage are determined at quote and by the policy issued.
Last reviewed July 2026.