Railroad Crossing Insurance Question

[PapaBarnCat]

Originally Posted by onthebay

Does anyone have any exprience with private crossings over the Scenic Railroad tracks? Anybody that lives along the west side of Merideth Bay or Paugus Bay and has to cross the tracks to get to land or docks on the water?
How bad is the process to get an official crossing? I have the paperwork and it seems straight forward. It looks to cost about $2,500.00 to have the railroads approved contractor build one.
The problem I am having is that the state wants a liability policy of 1 Million per occurrence and 2 Million aggregate covering the crossing. I thought I could add a rider to my homeowners but they said I had to have a commercial liability policy at about $2,000.00 per year. Does anyone know if this is true or should I change insurance companies. Does anyone know who might be experienced with this type of insurance...Thx

Hmmmm.. "Official crossing", as in a public crossing? Would the State be a named insured? I used to work for a "specialty insurance" broker. I'd be happy to e-mail my old contacts to try to help you, but I'll probably need a lot more info. Just off the top of my head, who owns the tracks, who would be the primary insured, any named insureds, nature of business of the primary insured, nature of business of the primary insured at that location, who operates the railroad, and probably more. 2K a year sounds a bit high. I wonder if that is contractor's liability during construction. This has me interested, although you'll probably get faster results if you talk to an agency that has "specialty" insurance as an advertising point. If I can help, mailto:will_emerson@verizon.net