wirsig wrote:Several hundred? More like thousand.

I referenced the "several hundred amount from kevbert's previous post when he mentioned it was cost prohibitive.

kevbert wrote:The plane is rented and insurance is part of the rental

Nothing elitist about it...I am all for teaching newbies to fly and rarely go up with an empty seat in my aircraft just to show others the joy of flying. I am also not saying that the fellows in your example should not participate...they are covering the consequences with the insurance provided in the rental agreement...so your argument does not hold water. The fact of the matter still remains...if you cannot afford the consequences then don't participate until you can cover them. If they bought an aircraft and could not afford the liability insurance so they went uninsured then I do have a problem with that...remember that nothing is free and someone will have to pay if there is an accident. If you understand economics then surely you understand how this works.

kevbert wrote: I'm sorry to hear that even trying to follow your dream is a luxury and not a right.

Thanks for the elitist snob's perspective.

I'm waiting for you to suggest that they deserve health insurance too... (please don't anyone bite on that one...)

I will assume that Lowflybye meant "if you can't afford several hundred dollars for insurance, you shouldn't be considering aircraft ownership."

I would strongly encourage renter's insurance too for students, even those barely scraping by in life who've chosen to dedicate their funds to flying. As a student, if you stuff a rented 152 into Farmer John's barn, who is on the hook for the barn? The deductible for a flight school's policy is usually pretty high, and I think the student is on the hook for that. Am I wrong?

I would categorize myself as the above... I put flying ahead of most things in life, sacrificed much that a man my age should have by now in order to pursue the dream. I am doing it as cheaply as I can, in my opinion. However, if I lived in Alaska it would be a no-go from what I'm reading here. The bank still owns half my plane, and they require hull insurance.

Skystrider wrote:
I just did a quick calculation to find out how many times my new car's value would go into the value of my Maule. Then I took that multiplier and applied it against my insurance for my car (liability and value) and it comes out to 42% of my current aircraft premium. Not saying it is a direct comparision but closer enough probably.

My conclusion is that aircraft insurance is more expensive than car insurance. But I understand that. I have never ground looped my car due to a severe crosswind!

Remember a couple of things...car insurance is based on market value so if you insure it for $30k and the market says it's worth $25k then that is all they will pay you in a total loss. With aircraft insurance the check written for a total loss is the same amount as is stated on the policy. Also look at your liability limit on the car insurance...in most cases it is far less than $1 Million as is on your aircraft policy.

1SeventyZ wrote:
I would strongly encourage renter's insurance too for students, even those barely scraping by in life who've chosen to dedicate their funds to flying. As a student, if you stuff a rented 152 into Farmer John's barn, who is on the hook for the barn? The deductible for a flight school's policy is usually pretty high, and I think the student is on the hook for that. Am I wrong?

Your on the right track Zane...more on that issue when i return from a conference call...

I maybe had 70 hrs when I bought my stinson and no tail wheel time and paid $1600 the first year with $25000 hull. It has been going down a little every year since.
I don't have the cash to buy another plane if I ball this one up, so for me a little over $100 a month (or 2 hrs of flying) is not worth the risk.

This is always a hot button topic, even leaving aside the connected issues of tort reform, personal responsibility, lawyers etc.

Regardless of your opinion of our legal system, it exists. Liability is a good deal IMO.

Oh and though avemco does have a northern latitudes exclusion it doesn't apply to Alaska.

I'm insured and wouldn't go any other way. When i first started it was $2500 for 25k of hull coverage. now it is down to $1100 for the same coverage. I'm not covered on floats or skis but can pay an additional fee if i decide I want either one.

There has been times when I've thought about dropping the insurance because college is expensive but I decided that I'd rather have the plane insured just in case rather than wreaking it and risking everything.

I drive a crappy car that costs $150/yr for liability coverage just so I can afford to fly. Seems pretty often I have someone ask me how I bought a plane so young...yet they drive a lifted PSD that cost them 40k.

When I bought my first 170 in 1999, my full coverage premium was $1,000/yr. I watched it rise up into the $1,400 range after 911, and today it's back down to $1,100/yr.
My current realization of insurance cost is that my son who will turn 15 y/o in a couple months is showing great interest in soloing on his 16th. birthday. I didn't even know if anyone would write a policy for a low time 16 y/o student in a taildragger today, so I talked to my agent about it. She came back with a ball park figure of $3,100, and continued to say it should go down with more logged time.
Well I never wanted to be an instructor, but were wasting a lot of unloggable time flying around. I figure the money spent on an instructor rating would be a wash on what might be saved on premiums. Once I get him through private, my daughter will be ready to work towards solo training. Just think of all the money all be saving!
Needless to say I've recently spent a few evenings watching Martha King tell me how to be an instructor.
I guess if I wanted to be good at saving money, I would have quit flying a long time ago.
Happy flying (don't think about the cost),
Tom

TomW wrote:I guess if I wanted to be good at saving money, I would have quit flying a long time ago.

Tom

Hooboy, that's right.

1SeventyZ wrote:
I'm waiting for you to suggest that they deserve health insurance too... (please don't anyone bite on that one...)

I will assume that Lowflybye meant "if you can't afford several hundred dollars for insurance, you shouldn't be considering aircraft ownership."

You can't dangle that bait and not expect a sucker to take it! I'll just say that I'm generally in favor of liability insurance, I'm even in favor of MANDATING liability insurance for certain dangerous activities with a potential for damaging other people or property as long as the mandate is subject to some reasonable conditions. And I'm absolutely opposed to legally requiring insurance when it's not covering your liability for causing damage to others.

And if Lowflyby just meant aircraft ownership instead of flying as he originally stated, then I happily retract my unflattering characterization.

kevbert wrote:

1SeventyZ wrote:
I'm waiting for you to suggest that they deserve health insurance too... (please don't anyone bite on that one...)

I will assume that Lowflybye meant "if you can't afford several hundred dollars for insurance, you shouldn't be considering aircraft ownership."

And if Lowflyby just meant aircraft ownership instead of flying as he originally stated, then I happily retract my unflattering characterization.

Yes, I was referring to aircraft ownership...up until your post, that was the only form of flying we were talking about. I guess I should have worded my initial post a little more careful.

lowflybye wrote:I guess I should have worded my initial post a little more careful.

Carefully, you illiterate Tennesee hillbilly!

Dag nabbit...that dang spellchecker thingy catched me off my game agin...

Ohh...grammatical accountability...finally!

lowflybye wrote:Dag nabbit...that dang spellchecker thingy catched me off my game agin...

Nah...you spelled "careful" correctly.

For the student pilot or low time private pilot, it definitely IS pretty expensive to insure. You can buy and then learn to fly in your own plane, but costly insurance is one of the reasons it makes sense to rent a plane for flight training.

I'm stating the obvious here for the more experienced pilot/owners, but generally, insurance premiums are a function of the following variables:

- accident & violation history
- total flight time
- ratings
- time in type
- complexity of your airframe (big adders for retractable gear and multi-engines)
- hull value.

As your accident/violation free piloting time in type goes up, the premiums drop, sometimes a lot (especially if you're insuring a complex/high performance bird). AOPA does a good job of shopping around for you for the best available rates - I found them to be very helpful.

The main reason we as pilots aren't required by law to carry at least liability coverage is the fact that States can't regulate aviation, as they do automobile driving.

I insure through AOPA. I checked some other places but it was almost three time more expensive. I just have liability on both the 150 & 175. I pay $420/year for the 150 and a little more than twice that for the 175. I had hull coverage on the 175 till I figured out it was going to be on the ground for a long time so I switched to liability only. Still ended up being a lot for the hrs I have flown it.

You guys are getting off easy. I climbed out of the Cessna 172 with 100TT and jumped into the Maule M7 235HP and 0 ZERO 0 TW time, talk about a scene right out of deliverance

$6500.00 with a $5000.00 deductible. That was 130K Hull. Having heard all the horror stories about TW Maules with the big engine, I couldn't bring myself to fly it and self insure.

All better now.

lowflybye wrote:

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:
I have a large deductible to minimize the damage from the insurance bill. And if I had a 20k plane instead of a 40k plane I might drop hull protection altogether.

How much are you saving per year to increase that deductible? If it saves you $100 per year to have a $1,000 deductible then you would have to go 10 years loss free to equal out the difference. The ratio is different depending on the savings and deductible, but often times it does not make since. This is why most deductibles are low or NIL to begin with...it does not make since to the underwriters in most cases because a loss that is reported to them is probably going to exceed a $100, $250, or even $1,000 deductible anyway...aviation losses are not cheap.

I don't know, I would think that that they still maintain a deductible to keep the gnat-sized claims away from them. My last damage repair quoted for less than $500. There is a processing cost to every claim after all.

As to your question about how much it saves, I need to look at it again. When I first started with AVEMCO I ran the numbers and it appeared to make sense at the time, but I have to admit I have simply kept it in place in subsequent renewals without reexamining the co$ts.

That being said...what is the ROR on a typical investment of $10k in today's economic climate? I bet I can get a higher ROR from my insurance savings on that deductible amount than from a similarly-sized certificate or bond, and I even get to keep the money and invest it again in some other way until I have an accident

Interesting that this subject came up now because recently I have been amazed at the number of pilots talking about not having insurance on their aircraft.
No doubt if the tail of my Cessna was buzzed off by a speeding Cirrus, my plane would spiral down into the most ruthless lawyers house in town and my widow would end up homeless.

i'm like u rob, ain't gonna leave the ground without it...now, after 1 really dumb pilot trick, some rather expensive training, and lots of WTFO's, i am back to only 1400/yr, insuring 155 K, lots of liability, good all places, must notify if we leave the lower 48...all in all, a bargain for a guy with only about 900 hrs, most fixed gear turbo 182/206...some conquest time...

if u need an eye opener, open up a bike shop and insure that baby. used to be 600/mo, now 6000 per mo w/huge deductibles...with 0 claims!

even after the abrupt stop maneuver, the ins co at that time treated me like aces. pros for sure. after the crash, it was quite like a divorce deal when shopping for ins, once u disclose the crash, the rates went to 3500+ per yr. after some specialized mtn. training rates went down 70%!

best i have dealt with is heather at regal aviation in hillsboro, or. good luck and don't crash!