Dallas wrote:
A pilot buddy who works for a law firm has rattled my cage over
renter's insurance and liability.

Do you renters feel the need to pick up supplemental insurance? If
so who did you use and how much did it cost you?

Here's his comments:

You should talk to me about FBO insurance too. Unless your FBO is
different than every other FBO I've ever been into, their insurance
provides them (and/or the aircraft owner if it is leased to the FBO)
with hull coverage and liability insurance. In the event of damage
to the aircraft, of harm to a person (but maybe not you), the
insurance will pay to repair the aircraft and defend and pay and
lawsuits that arise out of the event. However, when all is said and
done, to the extent that the incident is your fault (most are), the
insurance company will have the right to sue you to recover all the
amounts they paid to 'clean up your mess'. If you are renting from
an FBO, getting a renter's policy (sometimes called a non-owned
aircraft policy) is a good idea. I've never figured out how the
'hull' portion of those polcies work - if you were flying a $100K
aircraft, you wouldn't want to have to maintain $100K of hull
coverage on top of the liability coverage.


Is everything above after "Here's his comments:" really a lawyers comments?
If so he really needs to go do some remedial work on insurance law. Because
the last part about hull versus liability shows a significant cluelessness.

The liability covers the insured against damage done to OTHER's person or
property. The hull coverage covers the insured aircraft.

That said, if you need renter's insurance depends on two things. The policy
that to FBO has and your personal net worth. There are policies out there
that cover renters with no or limited right to subrogation. If your FBO has
one of those you don't need renter's insurance. Also, if you don't have
enough assets you don't need to worry about it either.