Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. · TDI license #5595
Personal Watercraft Insurance
A jet ski is legally a boat, and it is insured like one — liability for what you do on the water, coverage on the ski itself, the trailer scheduled with its own value. But two things about a PWC are nothing like a boat, and they are worth two minutes before you buy anything.
What Texas asks of a jet ski
- Sunset to sunrise
- No operation
- Life jackets
- Everyone aboard, not inflatable
- Within 50 feet
- Headway speed only
- Under 13
- Not without a qualifying adult
- Boater education
- Born on or after 9/1/1993
Inboard, by design
Why your home policy can't cover one
Homeowners policies make a small allowance for small boats — typically little outboard-powered craft under about 25 horsepower, though forms vary and yours is worth checking. A jet ski fails that test by design: a PWC is an inboard jet-drive vessel, a sit-down rocket with the engine built into the hull — which is why the small-boat allowance in a typical homeowners policy never reaches a jet ski. Not partially, not sometimes. A Sea-Doo with no policy of its own is uninsured.
TPWD's own rules
Texas treats a PWC as its own class of vessel
The state already regulates PWCs separately from other boats, which tells you how the risk is seen. No operation from sunset to sunrise. A life jacket on every person aboard — inflatable jackets do not count on a PWC. No exceeding headway speed within 50 feet of another vessel, person, or object. Nobody under 13 operating without a qualifying adult aboard — and if you were born on or after September 1, 1993, boater education is required to operate any PWC, regardless of horsepower.
Rules written specifically for one kind of vessel are the state's way of saying what insurers also price for: a PWC is quick, open, and shared with everyone on the water around it.
Sources: TPWD — personal watercraft operation and regulations; TPWD — mandatory boater education. Verified .
The rest is one page over
Everything else is the boat page
Everything else about insuring one — liability on the water, damage to the ski, the trailer, what winter lay-up changes — works the way it does for any boat, and our boat & marine insurance page covers all of it.
Or skip the reading — a PWC quote is one short conversation: (281) 484-8320, and our Houston office is on FM 1959 if you would rather come by.
Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00; Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034.