Good stuff guys.

Best advise is have your own insurance. The insurance company will deal with the other party. Protest information and results will help. Are they the bottomline for insurance companies? NO. However that is their game, you have done all you can do as a sailor and the Insurance Company will appreciate it.

I have been on the other side of this issue. Protests should be heard. One of the most frustrating things I have seen is the tendancy to avoid protests. Yes I too hate them. However without them, the same bad sailors will continue to sail badly. As mentioned in this thread, it is best to sail and avoid the situations that would lead to questionable situations and decisions. That said if it happens, a protest must be held for everyone's sake, or the situation will happen over and over again. Self policing means just that. That means all of us. We all need to follow through with protests. This is not the other guys problem, it is our problem. Everyone needs to step up to the plate. I serve as a PRO for several regattas a year. I can not tell you how many times I get notified at the finish line of a protest. I put together the protest committee, only to learn the sailor had with-drawn the protest or simply did not file the protest by the dead line, to avoid it.
If you are on the race committee, be ready to follow through with protests. They are easy to do, it is spelled out step by step in the rule book. Just do what the rule book says...that is why we have a "rule book". One of the major reasons that racing is viewed negatively is people will not man up to the job at hand. They sail badly (meaning, breaking rules) and everyone looks the other way so they don't have to get involved.
Racing sailboats is like playing any other game. It is no fun unless all of the players go by the same rules. I have seen the rules pushed most by those viewed as the best sailors. All the more reason to strenghten the rules. This can only be done by all of us "the sailors".
That said, use you head. In the old days, I did serve on one protest committee where we had to hear 8 protests from one sailor. (Not a good way to try and win a regatta).
Also, the best way to learn the rules is to serve on a protest committee (it forces you to read the rule book and actually learn the rules before you end up on the wrong side of a protest committee).