For the people who get the call first

When lightning hits a boat, the owner does not call a fiberglass shop. They call you. The marina office. The mechanic who did the last service. The surveyor whose report is in the file. The agent whose name is on the policy.

And then you are holding a problem that is somewhere between inconvenient and unsolvable: a boat that needs system-by-system electrical diagnostics you may not do, a claim that needs contractor-grade documentation, structural work at an exit point, and possibly a haul-out and 200 miles of road between the vessel and anyone who can handle all of it.

That is the work we want. We built the program so you can hand it off cleanly, keep the relationship, and get the customer back.

The honest part: are we going to take your customer?

You should ask. Everyone does, and the ones who don’t ask are just thinking it.

Here is our answer, and it is structural rather than a promise.

We are a storm, lightning and structural damage repair contractor. We do marine fiberglass, structural, electrical and storm damage repair, and we handle the claim documentation and repair side that goes with it. We do not want your slip revenue, your dry storage business, your maintenance accounts, your bottom jobs, your engine service work, your rigging contracts, your survey work or your book of policies. Those are not our business and taking them on would make us worse at the one thing we do.

Practically, that means a referral runs on a defined scope. We inspect, diagnose, document, estimate, repair the damage from the event, and return the boat. Work that falls outside the loss goes back to you — we tell the owner it is your call to make, not ours, and where you want it, we say so by name.

We also keep you in the loop rather than around it. You get told what we found, what we scoped, and when the boat is going home. A referral that goes into a black hole is a referral nobody makes twice, and we know it.

If you want it in writing, we will put it in writing. Ask for the partner agreement.

How the referral works

1. Call or send it over

One phone call to 866-950-3888 does it. Our storm response hotline is answered by a live person 24 hours a day, including during and after named storms, which is exactly when you need someone to pick up. You can also send the vessel details, the owner’s contact information and any photos you already have by email or through the partner form on this page.

You do not need to have diagnosed anything. “Boat took a strike Tuesday, owner says the chartplotter is dead, I don’t know what else” is a complete referral.

2. We inspect — free, within 48 hours

We contact the owner directly, and we inspect the vessel within 48 hours, guaranteed. The initial storm damage inspection is free. We serve all of Florida and we transport vessels that cannot safely be run, which means the referral works the same whether the boat is in your marina or in a storage yard three counties inland.

3. We scope, document, repair and report back

We document the damage, prepare the scope of repair and the estimate, submit supplements as additional damage surfaces, and coordinate with the owner’s adjuster — as the repair contractor. Then we do the repair and return the vessel. You get told what we found and when the boat is coming back.

What you get, and what your customer gets

You get a live person at the other end of the phone at 2 a.m. after a storm; a defined scope that stays in its lane; a free inspection within 48 hours that costs your customer nothing to accept; statewide transport so distance stops being your problem; a competent answer for the electrical work most shops decline; the customer back when the repair is done; and status updates you can pass along without chasing anyone.

Your customer gets a free initial storm damage inspection; an inspection guaranteed within 48 hours; a live person on the hotline 24 hours a day; transport if the boat cannot safely be run; system-by-system electrical diagnostics rather than a guess; complete claim documentation from documentation and scope of repair through estimate, supplements and adjuster coordination, and then the repair itself; and one contractor responsible for the whole job instead of four vendors pointing at each other.

Co-branded storm guide for your customers

We produce a plain-language owner’s guide to marine storm and lightning damage — what to do in the first 48 hours, why damage surfaces weeks later, what to photograph, what to check on the declarations page before hurricane season, and when to stop powering things up. We will co-brand it with your logo and your contact details and give it to you as a print-ready PDF and a web version you can email or hand out at the office.

It is free to partners, there is no minimum referral volume attached to it, and it is genuinely useful to your customers whether or not they ever call us. Ask for the co-branded guide when you get in touch.

What we commit to

We answer the storm hotline with a live person, 24 hours a day.

We contact the referred owner within one business day, and after a named storm, faster.

We inspect within 48 hours, guaranteed.

The initial storm damage inspection is free, with no obligation on the owner.

We tell you what we found and when the boat is going home.

We stay in the scope of the loss and refer everything outside it back to you.

Partner types

Marinas and boatyards

After a storm your phone does not stop and your lift schedule is already full. We take the vessels you cannot fit, cannot electrically diagnose, or do not want tying up a slip while a claim develops. If the boat can stay with you, fine — we come to it. If it needs to leave, we arrange the haul-out with your team and move it, which clears your yard instead of clogging it. Your slip and storage revenue is not something we compete for.

Marine mechanics and mobile mechanics

You get called for a no-start and find something that is not mechanical. Electrical faults after a lightning event are a different discipline and a different liability: powering up a boat with compromised circuits can let a damaged board short a healthy one, and nobody wants to be the last person who touched it. Hand off the electrical and storm damage side, keep the engine service relationship, and get the boat back running.

Marine electricians

We are not looking to displace you on service work, and if you want to stay on the job we will work alongside you. Where we tend to be useful is in the scale of a post-event job: bench-level isolation testing across every system, ECU and ECM scanning, network diagnosis, structural repair at exit points, transport, and the claim documentation package that goes with all of it. If a job is bigger than you want to take on, or the boat needs to move, send it over.

Yacht clubs

Your members expect the club to know who to call, and after a storm they expect it immediately. We give you one number, answered by a live person 24 hours a day, that produces a free inspection within 48 hours for any member vessel anywhere in Florida. Several members hit at once is a normal week for us.

Boat storage facilities and dry stacks

Stored boats are the ones where damage goes undiscovered longest — the owner isn’t there, nothing gets powered up, and the failure shows up months later as an argument about when it happened. A documented inspection after an event protects the customer and it protects you. Inland facilities especially: Vaisala Xweather’s 2025 data records Polk County as having more total lightning events than any other US county in 2025 at 1,057,635, and Seminole County in the Orlando area as having the highest lightning density of any US county.

Marine surveyors

Your report identifies damage and recommends further evaluation. We do the evaluation, and we do it in the form that is useful downstream: measured, system by system, documented. SAMS and NAMS are the recognized US accrediting bodies and insurers commonly require a credentialed surveyor, and we work alongside credentialed surveyors regularly. Note that there is no published SAMS or NAMS lightning-specific standard — the reference points that exist are ABYC TE-4 for lightning protection, which states that complete protection from equipment damage or personal injury is not implied, plus E-2 for bonding and E-11 for AC and DC systems. Our documentation is built against those.

Insurance agents

You want your insured taken care of and you want the loss documented accurately, and after a big storm you want to give them a name that will actually answer. We are the repair contractor: we document the damage, write the scope of repair, prepare the estimate, submit supplements and coordinate with the adjuster, then perform the repair. We do not adjust claims, represent the insured or negotiate on anyone’s behalf — those are the functions of a licensed public adjuster in Florida and they are not what we do. What your insured gets from us is an accurate, evidence-based picture of the damage and a contractor who can execute the repair.

This matters more now that the deductible math has changed. Per the Hilb Group, marine lightning deductibles have moved from historically $250 to $500 to as much as 10 percent of hull value, which means an incomplete scope lands on your insured directly. Also worth flagging for insureds: Fla. Stat. 626.9541(1)(i) applies to all lines including marine and requires an insurer to affirm or deny coverage in writing within 30 days after proof-of-loss statements are completed; Fla. Stat. 627.70131 applies only to residential property insurers and does not govern a yacht hull policy.

Why Florida marine professionals end up needing us

Vaisala Xweather’s 2025 data ranks Florida as the most lightning-dense state in the US at 305 lightning events per square mile. BoatUS Marine Insurance data puts lightning claims at roughly 0.9 per 1,000 boats nationally and 3.3 per 1,000 in Florida — and higher in specific segments: 3.8 per 1,000 for monohull sailboats, about twice that rate for multihulls, and 6.0 per 1,000 for boats between 40 and 65 feet, against roughly 0.1 per 1,000 for small powerboats. Going from a 35-foot mast to a 45-foot mast nearly triples the odds.

Against that, FWC counted 997,102 registered recreational vessels in Florida in 2025. Your customers are in the highest-frequency segment of the highest-frequency state, and most of them still believe a boat has to take a direct hit to be damaged. It doesn’t — side flash, side strike through the hull, EMP-type induced surge currents in circuits that were never part of a strike path, and ground strike radiance from nearby strikes at a risk radius quoted as far as 100 to 300 feet all produce real, expensive damage on boats that were never touched.

That gap between what owners believe and what actually happens is the one you are standing in when the phone rings.

For related inspection information, visit our storm-damage boat inspection page or contact Fiberglass Solutions about a project or partnership inquiry.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Are you going to take my customer?
A: No, and the reason is structural rather than a promise. We are a storm, lightning and structural damage repair contractor. We do not do slip and storage rental, routine maintenance, bottom jobs, engine service, rigging contracts, survey work or insurance placement. A referral runs on a defined scope covering the damage from the event; work outside that scope goes back to you, and where you want it we name you to the owner directly. We will put the scope in a written partner agreement if you want one.

Q: What does it cost me or my customer to refer a boat?
A: Nothing to refer, and the initial storm damage inspection is free to the owner with no obligation. If the owner decides not to proceed after the inspection, that is the end of it.

Q: How fast will you respond after I refer a boat?
A: Our storm response hotline is answered by a live person 24 hours a day, we contact the referred owner within one business day and faster after a named storm, and we guarantee an inspection within 48 hours.

Q: My customer’s boat is inland and can’t be run. Does that still work?
A: Yes. We serve all of Florida and we transport vessels that cannot safely be run, including coordinating haul-out with the yard. Inland and stored vessels are a routine part of our work — FWC 2025 data counts 30,975 registered recreational vessels in Polk County and 33,716 in Orange County, both far from coastal boatyards.

Q: I’m a marine electrician. Are you competing with me?
A: Not on service work. Where we are typically useful is scale and scope on post-event jobs: bench-level isolation testing across every system, ECU and ECM scanning, network diagnosis, structural repair at exit points, transport, and the full claim documentation package. If you want to stay on a job, we work alongside you.

Q: Do you handle the insurance claim for my customer?
A: We handle the contractor side of it: we document the damage, prepare the scope of repair and the estimate, submit supplements as additional damage surfaces, coordinate with the adjuster, and perform the repair. We do not adjust claims, represent the insured or negotiate on anyone’s behalf — in Florida those are the functions of a licensed public adjuster.

Q: What is the co-branded guide and is there a catch?
A: It is a plain-language owner’s guide to marine storm and lightning damage, co-branded with your logo and contact details, supplied as a print-ready PDF and a web version. It is free to partners with no minimum referral volume attached. Request it when you get in touch.