I know several people that have made the decision to not get hull insurance that have totaled their planes. I know several that have totaled their plane and they have had hull insurance. Butches friend in Elk City lost his hanger with all his stuff and had no insurance.

I think it is fine to self insure if you can afford the loss. What say you

tim

It used to be common to self insure because hull, for crop dusters, was 1/3 the purchase price of the airplane. And fabric work was cheap back then. Understand, crop duster fabric work was functional not show quality.

I have flown in airplanes with good running engines and props that had been in a crash two weeks earlier. All done with common tools locally. Engines are dialed and props are tracked. Different world.

If you are able and willing to take the hit then sure.
Statistically the average owner should save $$$ by not buying hull insurance.

I do buy hull and liability it costs dearly each year!

I have passed on insurance in the past on some airplanes and have saved probably $10,000 or so.

It adds up pretty fast!

I went without hull coverage for many years in Alaska due to the cost of insurance for my operation (seaplane and flight instructing). I could have walked away if I'd had a big loss, but I'd have been out of the airplane business due to finances.

Moved to the lower 48, and sold the floats, insurance was cheap enough (I know, not cheap) that I have opted for hull coverage since. I could still walk away if I had to, but the cost of hull for what I'm doing is an acceptable hit.

MTV

I've always had it on my 55' 180. Hard not to add up the 17 years of premiums and not think about the $$ spent. Then, some &@?#%bag at the other end of my hangar row decides to be careless with an electrical power strip and bam, nicest C180 I've ever seen is reduced to a few puddles of aluminum. The hull insurance eased the pain a bit. Without it, I might have gone postal.

I totaled a 182B a few years back. Lets just say I am an expert at hot propping now. I am glad I had the insurance. I heard that a guy flipped a plane on its top at Mile High a few years back. He had hull and was glad. I think he burned his Mile High Club Tee shirt though.

Tim

I thought a super cub would be more expensive then my 182 with same hull value. I guess it's mostly based on seats. My cub was about 2200 a year. They wanted 3200 a year for 60 hull on the 182.
The cost of ownership is the hard part to afford. The cost of a loss for me would suck but would just be a loss I guess. The cub had a payment and insurance witch was about 50% of my flying budget.
With four people insured I'm paying 1000 a MONTH for health insurance.

I pay $800 a year for 50k hull coverage on my 170 with $0 deductible. It would take 62.5 years before I paid that in insurance. It seems like it's worth it for me.

Both my dad and grandpa wrecked planes with no insurance. They could handle the loss but didn't have the money to buy another plane. Each of them stopped flying for 20years after the accidents.

We always kept the Luscombe insured and plan to do the same with the Bearhawk. 2500$/yr will be hard to stomach but it's better than a total loss.

I pay bout $1400 a year for $130K hull value, $0 deductible and excellent policy. Best bargain out there in Insurance IMO. Pay almost half that for shit insurance on my Harley.

Even as a student pilot with only like 6 hours tailwheel time I paid like $3600 for $70K hull and $500 deductible.

Self Insuring is something I won't even consider, I'd be screwed and the thought of being grounded for a long time makes my stomach turn big time!!!

How do you think I acquired half of my upgrades...

The 1800$ a year is worth every penny.

AKT

Shopping around for aviation insurance is the best shopping one can do. I got quotes from 2,500 to 7,500 for zero tailwheel time 120K hull when I bought my maule. The most expensive one allowed me to have skis (which I didn't need at the time). The cheapest one said no alaska and no mexico. I told them I could live without alaska for the moment, but not Mexico and they wrote it for the same price without that exclusion.

I would have to fly incident free for nearly 50 years before it will have made sense to not insure, so it's a no brainer in my case.

My insurance is 1300 annually for a 40k hull value and almost no TW time. Should go down as I build TW time on this trip.

I couldn't imagine facing the loss of that much money without insurance to cover, much less the coverage for liability. That alone seems to be worth the cost. I'd hate to get sued after an accident.

I Gotta have hull I think. With the Starduster I may have to go a year without in order to get the cost down to something acceptable. The 701 (which is in long term delay mode.) will have hull from the get-go. I'm not sure I can afford two airplanes but I'm going to try.

I think a Marquart Charger with 200 horse, 26" tires, and an AK Bushwheels tail wheel might make both missions. But that's off topic. Sorry.

I've owned my plane since 2006. It has always been insured.

I had a prop strike in Thermal in 2007 and I asked my insurance whether I should just pay for it or use insurance. I used the insurance AND I was pushy in choosing the people that repaired it. I was very happy.

In 2012 I went off the runway at Bishop and had a prop strike; I let the insurance people orchestrate who would do the repairs (aircraftmens.net (I do not recommend)). I turned out to be not happy in all most every way.

If you can afford a $50,000 hit, my recommendation is to self insure: 1) hopefully you are a better pilot than me and won't need it and 2) if you do need it, I believe you are much better off when then the mechanics know they are working for you.

A local guy a few years back had a Bonanza. He was a former military pilot with many hours and no incidents either militarily or as a private. He was getting long in years and his insurance co really socked it to him for his hull insurance. So he said heck with it and canceled hull. His logic was never had a problem in the past. Well the insurance company knew more than he did evidently. He did a gear up a few months after that. Insurance companies look at their tables and predict the future.

Tim

I've always had hull coverage, regardless of the airplane. Currently I'm paying about $1100/year for all of the coverage, including liability and hull of $75K (the most I've been able to talk Avemco into covering my 63 P172D), which is about twice what anyone else will offer. It won't replace what I think the airplane is worth if it were to be totaled, but it would go a long way. I just couldn't eat the whole shebang.

On who designates repairs if I ever need them, no issue: my airplane, my designation.

Cary

One big perk of my insurance is that they will pay up to something like $15-20K ($0 deductible) to retrieve the plane in an emergency off airport landing scenario where there is no damage to the aircraft. This was the deciding factor in switching companies this year.

Considering the remoteness of the places I fly the most, this is a huge bonus to the policy. Even if the plane isn't damaged it still may be a big hit to pay to have a chopper haul it out. Just thought others may be interested to know bout this, I had not heard of it before.

For me 1700 a year as a low time and 1 wreck pilot is cheap. That's 1 million liability and 70k value. I pay almost the same for my vehicle that's worth 15k. Big difference is when I wreck my vehicle, when they come out and decide it's worth 5k that's all I get. With the plane, they either fix it or write a cheque for 70. Well worth it in my books.

Hey man, you misspelled "check"