Insuring a Columbia 400 & weekend only insurance

On 2007-07-12, Matt Barrow wrote:

Do you understand why pilots that fly a lot of hours ( 250 hrs /
year) have greatly reduced insurance rates?

I'm not sure I understand how an insurer would even know how many
hours a pilot is flying for the current policy year. I can see how an
insurer would value air time logged in the *past* (which I assume is
already factored into the rate quote for the following term). Do
pilots update their insurers mid-term to get mid-term rate reductions?

At the risk of being wrong, I'm going to speculate that there is a
sweet spot amount of airtime where a pilot has achieved enough
experience to be considered substantially skilled and current, and the
benefit of experiencing many more hours beyond that point probably
tapers off and simply becomes more risky because they're in danger
more often and not learning and improving at the same rate. I would
not expect the learning curve of piloting to be exponential or even
linear, but rather logarithmic.

Suppose someone has 3k+ hours under their belt, and they're going to
cut back and just fly weekends. If I were their insurer (who
admittedly knows very little about aviation insurance) I would be
tempted to favor the weekend situation over the situation where the
same pilot continues to fly 40+ hours/week, because they're already
well experienced and current; so in all those additional expected
hours I would expect the pilot to encounter more incidents, and
relatively fewer opportunities to improve.

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You may want to think about insurance costs this way. Each company
will want to charge a fee that their experience indicates will provide
them a profit.

They have data and experience across many pilots and many airplanes,
they roll the statistical dice, and hope their bets are good ones. You
can argue theory and 'it-ought-to-be's' for ever, but in the end as an
individual you're going to either buy a proffered policy, or not.

You are really too small an account to have leverage or to have a
Lloyd's 'name' step forward for you.

The reality is, private ownership probably makes sense if the airplane
is going to see something like 250 or so hours or more a year of use.
Less than that, and you are probably better off being a member of a
club or maybe a partnership.

You can surely present your arguments here, but why not do what you'd
have to do in the final analysis and contact the several companies and
ask them for a quote. Further, you might ask what might be done to
reduce the quote.

I suspect it's unrealistic to own a newer hull, or even an older one,
if you expect to fly an hour a week., even if it's between 8 and 9 AM
Sunday.

Let us know how you do when you talk with actual insurers. We would
all like to be wrong about the costs.

"Justin Gombos" wrote in message
news:Bgzli.7101$CJ4.6431@trndny08...
On 2007-07-12, Matt Barrow wrote:

Do you understand why pilots that fly a lot of hours ( 250 hrs /
year) have greatly reduced insurance rates?

I'm not sure I understand how an insurer would even know how many
hours a pilot is flying for the current policy year.

They ask you (and it's essentially an affirmation under oath...plus they MAY
ask for your logs)

I can see how an
insurer would value air time logged in the *past* (which I assume is
already factored into the rate quote for the following term). Do
pilots update their insurers mid-term to get mid-term rate reductions?

Experience.

You're way out of your element here and setting yourself up for a thumpin'.

"Matt Barrow" wrote

You're way out of your element here and setting yourself up for a thumpin'.

I'm beginning to think that we have a troll, or someone that who has MXS as a
hero.
--
Jim in NC

On 2007-07-13, Morgans wrote:
"Matt Barrow" wrote

You're way out of your element here and setting yourself up for a thumpin'.

I'm beginning to think that we have a troll, or someone that who has
MXS as a hero.

I don't think Barrow was out of line there. He was just warning me he
is about to unleash his firehose of information if I continue to press
forward with my questions. Your accusation that he's trolling is
indeed the first ad hominem to enter this thread. As a matter of
etiquette, you ought to have more certainty than that before making
insulting accusations. So far Barrow has been an asset to this
thread.

--
PM instructions: caesar cipher the alpha chars in my addy (key = +3).

"Justin Gombos" wrote

I don't think Barrow was out of line there.

You missed it, as usual. I'm accusing you
--
Jim in NC of starting to act like MXS. So is he, in a way.

You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like insurance,
get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300 hours a year its
availability will not be an important issue, either. 200 hours a year
is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days a week at most.

You already pointed out there are several clubs in the area spreading
the use of one airplane over many members. If some of those are
frustrated with not having the bird when they want it there may be an
opportunity to get the pilots you need without a lot of effort.

Oh, a minor point to add. If you are senior partner you may want to
recruit another pilot who only wants to use the airplane for business
during the week. If effect then, you'd be paying for 3.5 days of
insurance, sort of what your goal was.

Of course there might be times you want the airplane on a weekday, and
your partner, on the weekend. Those are easy conflicts to work out.

"Tina" wrote in message
ps.com...
You may want to reconsider the type airplane you'd like -- there's a
huge difference in ease of flying between something like a 172 and a
Columbia, and that really matters for pilots who don't have a lot of
experience and are not likely to fly 100 plus hours a year.

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like insurance,
get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300 hours a year its
availability will not be an important issue, either. 200 hours a year
is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days a week at most.

The insurance will be based on the least-experienced/fewest-annual-hours
member of the partnership, so he may have a hard time finding a group unless
he's willing to pick up the bulk of the insurance tab. That seems to be his
main issue.

You already pointed out there are several clubs in the area spreading
the use of one airplane over many members. If some of those are
frustrated with not having the bird when they want it there may be an
opportunity to get the pilots you need without a lot of effort.

If the demand was there...

On 2007-07-13, Matt Barrow wrote:

"Tina" wrote in message
ps.com...

What may work best for you is to form a partnership with one or two
others and jointly own the airplane. The fixed costs, like
insurance, get spread, and if the airplane gets used 200 or 300
hours a year its availability will not be an important issue,
either. 200 hours a year is about 4 hours a week -- one or two days
a week at most.

The insurance will be based on the
least-experienced/fewest-annual-hours member of the partnership, so
he may have a hard time finding a group unless he's willing to pick
up the bulk of the insurance tab. That seems to be his main issue.

I like the suggestion. I'm figuring that since Columbia's are rarely
offered for rent, I could charge top dollar. As for the insurance,
would each pilot have to be named on the policy? If I require them to
have renters insurance, how would that effect my policy?

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PM instructions: caesar cipher the alpha chars in my addy (key = +3).