Insurers Won’t Pay Boat Owner’s Claim in Rhode Island Lost-at-Sea Case

Insurers say they will not cover the loss of a boat owned by a Vermont man that sank off Rhode Island with his mother aboard.

Nathan Carman and his mother, 54-year-old Linda Carman of Middletown, Connecticut, left on a fishing trip in September. Nathan Carman was found alone in a life raft eight days later. His mother is presumed dead.

In papers filed last week in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, the National Liability & Fire Insurance Co., and a marine insurer said Nathan Carman made “incomplete, improper, and faulty repairs” to the vessel on the day before it sank, and that he knew the vessel was “unseaworthy.”

Carman has previously said he believed his boat was safe.

His lawyer, Huber Santos, did not immediately return a call Monday.