Insuring a Columbia 400 & weekend only insurance

Very good points overall Shapiro.. I appreciate your use of sound
logic here.

On 2007-07-15, Marty Shapiro wrote:

At what time did the airplane crash? Suppose someone crashes
at 11:00 PM Sunday while flying in a sparsely populated where there
is no radar coverage. Wreckage is found Monday morning at 6 AM.
Does the weekend policy cover this crash? Before you answer,
remember that there are no witnesses to the crash nor any radar
tapes to confirm when the airccraft disappeared.

It would be handled the same way it would be handled on the last day
of an annual policy not set to renew. I don't know what the case law
indicates in those instances. The court is going to use the best
evidence available, which may include the date of the accident printed
on the FAA accident report. If the insurance company has better
information than the FAA had in their date estimation, the court will
accept it. Even in the worst case, there is likely to be
meterological data, approximate route, refueling records, ETA from
whoever was expecting him / ETD from whoever he last spoke to.

Often whether these gray areas become problematic depend on the
quality of the insurance provider. I don't always buy insurance from
the lowest bidder, because there are some insurers who have a high
consumer rating, and a reputation for being easy going on claims.
Insureds who take the lowest bid are likely to need to hire a lawyer
to get the money their entitled to in these borderline claims.

It's a good point though. Since a weekend policy would have 51-52
more end-of-coverage seams than an annual policy, it would be
important to get a good insurer. The probability of litigation would
increase with the lower quality insurers. It would certainly make
sense to have set the termination time to 4am or some less likely time
to be in the air.

The important thing is that such a policy puts pressure on the
pilot to complete the flight by midnight Sunday or fly without
insurance coverage the next day. That has been shown to be the
cause of gethomeitis (or, when outbound, getthereitis).

The policies don't currently exist without continuity, so it cannot
have been shown at this point to cause getmehomeitis.. unless you mean
to say other pressuring factors have had this effect, like making it
to work. And certainly those other factors are significant, and
indeed just as present regardless of whether insurance coverage has
continuity.

If a pilot doesn't have a reason not to fly on weekdays, and we
distill the hypothetical incident down to the insurance being the only
pressuring factor, then I would agree - this pilot would not be a good
candidate for a weekend only policy. If there were to be a
significant number of pilots who are available to fly daily signing up
for the weekend policy, then the solution to getmehomeitis could be a
simple matter of offering additional days a la carte, at a high enough
rate to make it interesting for the insurer, and sold online so the
extra coverage can be bought at 3am if needed.

The weather might be VFR, but is it at the pilot's personal comfort
level?

If the weather were sufficiently uncomfortable for the pilot, it would
exceed the pilots discomfort of flying uninsured the next day.. which
amounts to less risk (but more risk on the other side of the line).
Finding that line is like splitting hairs, so moving on...

Would the pilot feel the pressure to fly if it is below his comfort
level even though legal?

The risk that an entry level pilot would accept weather that does not
satisfy their personal minimum is already assumed in the initial
figure. The corner cases where discontinuity of coverage is the only
pressuring factor could be accounted for with an increased premium.

Does the weekend IFR rated pilot really feel comfortable shooting
the approach to minimums when it has been maybe years since he had
to do so, even though he is legally current? If not, that pilot is
more prone to make mistakes than the pilot who flies much more
frequently or even daily.

I'm already factoring sparsity of experience in the premium, even in
the annual policy - otherwise experienced pilots would be pulling the
weight of entry-level pilots, which I doubt is the case.

BTW, the legality of the flight has absolutely nothing to due
with insurance coverage. Unlike the state DMV, the FAA does not
require insurance to register an aircraft or exercise pilot
privileges.

Thanks for confirming that.. I looked through part 91 earlier and
didn't see it.

The daily pilot doesn't worry about being trapped by the
weather. He just waits until the next day. He doesn't have the
pressure of having to wait until the next weekend.

Is this pilot retired? I've been trapped by weather myself, suffering
through getmehomeitis, and I wasn't constrained by a discontinous
insurance policy. Insurance was a non-issue. And if my insurance
were a weekend only policy, it would have been the least of the
conflicting interests.

So the daily pilot is not as inconvenienced as a weekend pilot,
regardless of whether the weekend pilot has daily coverage, or weekend
coverage.

The weekend policy tells the pilot that if he doesn't get home by
midnight Sunday, he is going to either miss an entire week's work or
fly without insurance coverage. The daily pilot will miss maybe
half a days work if Monday morning is clear and he is only two or
three hours away from his destination. The daily pilot has both
more experience and less pressure to complete the flight on Sunday
than the weekend pilot.

Weekend pilots naturally must have a contingency plan if they're doing
a weekend cross country. It could even involve buying commercial
airfare round trip, or taking a bus, or a rental car. These
inconveniences are not eliminated by a daily insurance policy, as the
insurance policy does not relieve them of whatever week day
obligations they have.

If you start making the policy good through Monday, then you
just moved the problem from Sunday night to Monday night. Care to
go for Tuesday? Might as well go for all seven days and be done
with it.

I agree. If a pilot is available to fly on all those days, a weekend
policy would be a poor choice for that pilot.

If the weekend pilot is willing to fly Monday with no insurance
coverage, why does he even bother with insurance at all, especially
if he is not flying every weekend.

He may be willing to accept small, infrequent measured risks in
extenuating cases, but not a full year of risk. Motorcyclists who
wear a helmet might occasionally get in a pinch and not have a helmet
with them (or give their only to an unexpected passenger), and be
willing to go a couple miles w/out a helmet. But asking them to do
this all year long is quite a different matter.

Just get "hull not in motion" coverage to protect against ground
damage caused by someone else while the aircraft is parked in its
tie down.

Ah, even simpler!

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