Kerala has cleared insurance cover for the boats its traditional fishermen depend on — and the state government will pay 90 percent of the premium. The order, issued on Saturday, 22 August 2026, sanctions a project called “Insurance Coverage to Marine Fishing Implements” for around 23,465 traditional fishing crafts along the Kerala coast, with an outlay of ₹100 lakh (₹1 crore) in the 2026–27 financial year.
For a state where fishermen were involved in 1,607 accidents at sea over the last ten years, this is the first time the craft itself — hull and engine — gets dedicated, subsidised cover. Until now, the protection available to Kerala’s fishers mostly covered the person, not the boat. This order changes that equation, at least for the traditional fleet.
At a glance: the Kerala fishing-implements insurance project
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Government order | G.O.(Rt)No.506/2026/F&P, dated 22 August 2026 |
| Issuing department | Fisheries & Port (B) Department, Government of Kerala |
| Project | Insurance Coverage to Marine Fishing Implements |
| Outlay sanctioned | ₹100 lakh (₹1 crore), FY 2026–27, Head of Account 2405-00-800-27(P) |
| Who is covered | Marine fishermen of Kerala with traditional fishing crafts |
| Crafts to be covered | Around 23,465 traditional fishing crafts on the Kerala coast |
| Premium sharing | 90% government, 10% beneficiary |
| Priority | Vessels with length overall (LOA) up to 20 metres |
| Signed by | Abdul Nasar B, IAS, Special Secretary (by order of the Governor) |
What the order actually says
The order records that the Director of Fisheries, Thiruvananthapuram, submitted the proposal in letters dated 14 and 17 August 2026, and that the Departmental Working Group discussed the project in detail at its meeting on 22 August 2026 and recommended approval. On that recommendation, the government accorded administrative sanction for the project at an outlay of ₹100 lakh.
The order sets out four objectives:
- Provide insurance coverage to marine fishing implements.
- Cover partial and full damage of crafts.
- Cover the engine of the craft.
- Give security to fishermen’s crafts against natural calamities and disasters.
That last point matters most in Kerala. Cyclones, rough seas and collisions are the everyday risks of the state’s inshore fleet — and a damaged hull or a dead engine can keep a family ashore for weeks, with no income coming in. Insurance that pays for repair or replacement is the difference between a bad season and a lost livelihood.
The sum-insured table: what your boat is worth under the scheme
The order classifies traditional fishing crafts into six classes based on their assessed value, by length overall (LOA) and engine capacity. Each class has two assessed values: the hull alone, and the hull with the engine. These are the figures the cover is built on — so a fisher can work out, roughly, which class his craft falls into.
| Class | Craft (LOA and engine) | Hull only (assessed value) | Hull + engine (assessed value) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LOA below 10 m, engine below 10 hp | ₹2,00,000 | ₹3,50,000 |
| 2 | LOA below 10 m, engine 10 hp and above | ₹2,00,000 | ₹4,00,000 |
| 3 | LOA 10–15 m, engine below 40 hp | ₹4,00,000 | ₹6,00,000 |
| 4 | LOA 10–15 m, engine 40 hp and above | ₹4,00,000 | ₹8,00,000 |
| 5 | LOA 15–20 m (with engine) | ₹15,00,000 | ₹23,00,000 |
| 6 | LOA above 20 m (with engine) | ₹30,00,000 | ₹46,00,000 |
Two things stand out in this table. First, the engine is a large share of the value: for the smallest craft, the hull is assessed at ₹2 lakh but hull-plus-engine at ₹3.5–4 lakh, so the engine alone is worth ₹1.5–2 lakh of the cover. That is why the order covers the engine separately — an engine failure at sea is one of the most common and most expensive breakdowns a small-boat fisher faces. Second, the jump between classes is steep: a craft just over 15 metres is assessed at ₹15 lakh for the hull alone, against ₹4 lakh for one just under 15 metres. Owners near a class boundary should check exactly how their craft is measured, because the class decides the cover.
The order says coverage will be given “giving priority to vessel have LOA upto 20m” — in other words, the first five classes, which cover the overwhelming majority of the traditional fleet, come first. Larger craft above 20 metres are in the table, but the priority is the small and medium boats that make up the traditional sector.
You pay 10 percent — but 10 percent of what?
The order is clear on the split: 90 percent of the premium is provided by the government and 10 percent by the beneficiary. What it does not state is the premium itself — no per-craft premium rate, no insurer’s name, and no enrolment dates appear in the order. That is normal for an administrative sanction: the order approves the project and its ₹1 crore budgetary provision; the Fisheries Department then works out the insurance arrangement, and the premium for each class will follow from the sum insured and the insurer’s rate.
So no fisher should pay anyone anything yet on the strength of this order alone. The ₹100 lakh is the government’s budgetary provision for the scheme in 2026–27 — it funds the state’s share of the premiums, not the cover itself. The total sum insured across 23,465 crafts will be far larger than ₹1 crore; the ₹1 crore is the public money set aside to get the scheme running.
Why Kerala needed this: 1,607 accidents in ten years
The case for the scheme is written in the state’s own accident record. According to Kerala fisheries department data reported by The Times of India on 3 November 2026, fishermen in Kerala were involved in 1,607 accidents at sea over the last ten years. Most were collisions between vessels — very often between fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) boats — and boats overturning in strong waves.
What families got after those accidents shows the gap this order tries to close. Around 2,400 affected fisher families have received insurance compensation over the past decade. The state’s death payout to a deceased fisher’s family has been ₹10 lakh since 2017 (₹5 lakh from 2014 to 2017). And Matsyafed, the fishermen’s welfare federation, pays ₹1 lakh per damaged boat from its own fund. Those payments help — but ₹1 lakh of boat-damage aid does not rebuild a ₹4 lakh craft, and until this order, there was no subsidised hull-and-engine policy a traditional boat owner could buy into at a 90 percent subsidy.
Read the full accident picture in our report: Kerala Fishers: 1,607 Sea Accidents in 10 Years.
How this fits the other covers Kerala fishers already have
This is the third piece of Kerala’s fisher-protection puzzle to move in 2026 — and the three pieces cover different risks, so it is worth keeping them straight.
1. The person: PMMSY group accident cover. Under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana’s Group Accident Insurance Scheme (GAIS), fishers aged 18 to 70 are covered for ₹5 lakh on accidental death or permanent total disability, ₹2.5 lakh for permanent partial disability, and up to ₹25,000 for accidental hospitalisation — with the entire premium paid by the Centre and the states, so the fisher pays nothing. The Centre has released ₹149.07 crore in premiums since the scheme began, covering 167.33 lakh fishers, and 3,261 accidental death claims were reported, according to the fisheries ministry’s reply in Parliament on 11 February 2026. GAIS covers the fisher, not the boat. Details: PMMSY Insurance: ₹5 Lakh Cover for Fishers.
2. The person, for natural deaths: announced, not yet launched. On 17 September 2026, Kerala Fisheries Minister V E Abdul Gafoor announced that the state will introduce insurance cover for registered fishermen in the event of natural deaths — illness and heart attacks, which fall completely outside accident cover today. As of the announcement, no sum insured, premium or enrolment process had been published for that scheme. It is a promise, not yet a policy. Details: Kerala Announces Natural-Death Cover for Fishers.
3. The boat: this order. The 22 August order covers the craft and the engine — the asset, not the person. Together, the three pieces would give a Kerala fishing family cover for the fisher’s life, for natural death, and for the boat itself. But only the first is fully live today; the second is announced; and this third one is sanctioned, with enrolment details still to come.
Nationally, the picture is similar. Fishing-vessel insurance under PMMSY has been designed and priced — hull, machinery, accessories including fishing nets, collision liability, total and partial loss, and losses from natural calamities, at a premium of 2 percent of the sum insured plus GST, with the government paying up to 40 percent of the premium for general-category owners and up to 60 percent for SC, ST and women beneficiaries. But as of our check on 25 October 2026, no enrolment window had been announced for it. Kerala’s order is the state moving ahead on its own traditional fleet while the national vessel scheme is still at the final stage. Details: Fishing Boat Insurance at 2%: The Cover Fishers Waited For.
For the global context — why hull cover is getting more expensive worldwide, and what that means for small-boat owners — see $42.6B Marine Insurance Boom — What It Means for Fishers. Global marine insurance premiums reached USD 42.6 billion in 2025, with hull cover growing fastest at 9.4 percent, according to the International Union of Marine Insurance’s Stats Report 2026.
What Kerala fishers should do now
The order is real and the money is sanctioned — but the scheme is not yet something you can walk in and buy. Here is the practical checklist until the Fisheries Department publishes enrolment details:
- Check your craft’s class. Measure the length overall and note the engine horsepower, then find your row in the table above. That is the assessed value your cover will be based on. If your craft sits near a class boundary (10 m, 15 m or 20 m), get the measurement confirmed — the class decides the sum insured.
- Keep your registration current. The natural-death scheme announced in September will cover registered fishermen, and state schemes of this kind run through registered crafts and licensed fishers. Make sure your craft registration and fishing licence are up to date with the District Fisheries Office.
- Do not pay any agent. No enrolment process, insurer or premium rate has been published for this scheme yet. Anyone asking for money to “enrol” you under G.O.(Rt)No.506/2026/F&P is not acting on the order. Wait for an official notice from the Kerala Fisheries Department.
- Watch for the Fisheries Department notice. The next step is the department’s implementation order — naming the insurer, the premium per class, and where and how to apply. That is the document that turns this sanction into a policy you can hold.
- Keep your GAIS enrolment active meanwhile. The national accident cover of ₹5 lakh is live today and costs the fisher nothing. Confirm with your district fisheries office that you are enrolled — it is the protection that already exists while the boat cover is being set up.
Honest status: sanctioned, not yet open for enrolment
Readers should be clear about where things stand. G.O.(Rt)No.506/2026/F&P accords administrative sanction for the project and provides ₹100 lakh in the 2026–27 budget. It does not name an insurer, publish a premium rate, or open enrolment. The order is dated 22 August 2026, and the working-group recommendation that approved it was made the same day — this is a sanction, not a launch.
That does not make it a paper promise: the money is in the budget head, the beneficiary class is defined, the sum-insured table is fixed, and the 90:10 premium split is written into the order. What remains is implementation. Fisheries India will update this story when the Fisheries Department publishes enrolment details.
Frequently asked questions
Which boats are covered under the Kerala order?
Traditional fishing crafts of marine fishermen in Kerala — around 23,465 crafts on the Kerala coast, with priority to vessels with length overall up to 20 metres.
How much will a fisher have to pay?
The government pays 90 percent of the premium and the beneficiary pays 10 percent. The actual premium per craft has not been published yet, because the order does not state a premium rate — it will depend on the sum insured for the craft’s class and the insurer’s rate.
What is the maximum cover?
The highest class in the order is a craft above 20 metres LOA, assessed at ₹30 lakh for the hull alone and ₹46 lakh for hull plus engine. Most traditional crafts fall in the lower classes, from ₹2 lakh (hull) / ₹3.5 lakh (hull + engine) for a sub-10-metre craft with a small engine.
Does this cover the engine as well as the boat?
Yes. The order’s objectives explicitly include coverage for the engine of the craft, and the classification table gives a separate, higher assessed value for “hull with engine” in every class.
Can I enrol now?
Not yet. The order sanctions the project; no enrolment window, application form or insurer has been published in it. Check with your District Fisheries Office and watch for the Fisheries Department’s implementation notice — and do not pay anyone claiming to enrol you before that notice appears.
Does this replace the PMMSY accident cover?
No. The PMMSY Group Accident Insurance Scheme covers the fisher (₹5 lakh for accidental death or permanent total disability) and remains live. This Kerala scheme covers the craft and engine. They protect different things and sit side by side.
All figures in this article are taken from Government of Kerala G.O.(Rt)No.506/2026/F&P dated 22 August 2026 (Fisheries & Port (B) Department), read in full on 13 November 2026, with supporting context from the fisheries ministry’s Rajya Sabha reply of 11 February 2026, Kerala fisheries department data reported by The Times of India on 3 November 2026, and IUMI’s Stats Report 2026 (27 October 2026). The images in this article are illustrations.