Insuring a Columbia 400 & weekend only insurance

On 2007-07-11, Morgans wrote:

You must not understand insurance.

My understanding of insurance only scratches the surface; but my
understanding of math has me questioning your figures.

Think of it this way. How would you not flying Mon-Thurs make you
less likely to crash or break something, resulting in a claim?

I'm figuring air time to be directly proportional to risk.

Would you be flying more hours if you had a full week policy? If
not, why lower a year's premium?

More available flight hours generally means more hours in the air,
thus more hours at risk. If that were not the case, then one year of
insurance would transfer the same risk as two or more years of
coverage. But we know that's not true because insurers charge double
for two years of coverage.

If anything, flying Fri-Sun would expose you to more risk, in
possible mid-air's with increased weekend fliers.

Those insured for 365.25 days/year would share that same weekend risk.
But weekend pilots are not at risk during the week. So naturally
that's relatively less risk.

I'm not saying the risk transfered on a Saturday equals that of a
Wednesday, nor does that have to be true to justify a lower rate.
Weekend pilots are probably higher risk per hour than a 40+ hours/week
pilot, so the premium most likely would not be reduced to 3/7ths of
the normal rate.. but even if the premium is reduced to 5/7ths of the
rate the policy would sell.

That is the bottom line; to insure you for cheaper, they would need
to see lower risk. You would not be giving them lower risk, so cost
stays the same.

I don't see how ~156 days of insurance is not less risk than 365 days.
Even if you figure that more of the available time is consumed on a
weekend policy, you can still expect the annual risk to be lower.

--
PM instructions: do a caesar cipher on the alpha characters in my address using +3 as the key.

On 2007-07-11, Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Justin Gombos wrote:
On 2007-07-03, Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:

I also doubt you are going to find a carrier that would be willing
to start a policy every Friday and end it on Sunday.

That's not what I was looking for anyway. I would be more
interested in an annual policy that is effectively excludes flying
incidents Monday-Thursday.


But that is pretty much what they'd be doing anyway. What makes you
think that your risk flying 50 hours per year only on weekend would
be any less than the guy in the next hanger who flys 50 hours a year
but on any day of the week?

If insurers were counting hours, this discussion would be moot. They
may be estimating hours in their formula, but the accuracy of that
estimate is terrible if the same number is being used for a weekend
pilot as a daily pilot.

In fact since there will be more recreational pilots flying on
weekend the chance that you would run into one of them
increases.

Sure, but that risk is the same for a pilot insured daily flying on
the weekend (neglecting the experience factor, which is a variable
that's already accounted for in the premium).

There would also be the added concern that on one of your weekend
jaunts you would be more likely to fly in worst weather because
waiting until Monday isn't an option.

I disagree. A pilot willing to fly in unsafe weather will have more
opportunities to do so if they can fly every day. The pilot confined
to weekend travel only flies weekends for a reason. If their schedule
prevents them from flights on workdays, then being insured on weekdays
doesn't make the better weather flight time any more viable.

But it all boils down to the fact that the insurance company's risk
would not be reduced enough for you to even notice the difference.

That's a reasonable speculation, but I'm more inclined to think the
very small market and lack of competition is preventing insurers from
taking advantage of this. If no provider breaks the 365 day insurance
trend, all providers can collect artificially high premiums from
weekend pilots.

--
PM instructions: do a caesar cipher on the alpha characters in my address using +3 as the key.

"Justin Gombos" wrote in message
news:d3gli.7803$475.3234@trndny04...
On 2007-07-11, Morgans wrote:

You must not understand insurance.

My understanding of insurance only scratches the surface; but my
understanding of math has me questioning your figures.

Think of it this way. How would you not flying Mon-Thurs make you
less likely to crash or break something, resulting in a claim?

I'm figuring air time to be directly proportional to risk.

Would you be flying more hours if you had a full week policy? If
not, why lower a year's premium?

More available flight hours generally means more hours in the air,
thus more hours at risk. If that were not the case, then one year of
insurance would transfer the same risk as two or more years of
coverage. But we know that's not true because insurers charge double
for two years of coverage.

If anything, flying Fri-Sun would expose you to more risk, in
possible mid-air's with increased weekend fliers.

Those insured for 365.25 days/year would share that same weekend risk.
But weekend pilots are not at risk during the week. So naturally
that's relatively less risk.

I'm not saying the risk transfered on a Saturday equals that of a
Wednesday, nor does that have to be true to justify a lower rate.
Weekend pilots are probably higher risk per hour than a 40+ hours/week
pilot, so the premium most likely would not be reduced to 3/7ths of
the normal rate.. but even if the premium is reduced to 5/7ths of the
rate the policy would sell.

That is the bottom line; to insure you for cheaper, they would need
to see lower risk. You would not be giving them lower risk, so cost
stays the same.

I don't see how ~156 days of insurance is not less risk than 365 days.
Even if you figure that more of the available time is consumed on a
weekend policy, you can still expect the annual risk to be lower.

You really need to get a prasp on how insurance risk is calculate for
aviation. Most every assumption you listed is actually the inverse.

Call one of the brokers and let them explain it to you. This group is NOT
the place to do your secondary research, but we can point you in the right
direction to get started.

Good luck with whatever you do.
--
Matt Barrow
Performance Homes, LLC.
Cheyenne, WY

"Justin Gombos" wrote in message
news:%lgli.6962$lY4.6432@trndny07...
On 2007-07-11, Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Justin Gombos wrote:
On 2007-07-03, Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:

I also doubt you are going to find a carrier that would be willing
to start a policy every Friday and end it on Sunday.

That's not what I was looking for anyway. I would be more
interested in an annual policy that is effectively excludes flying
incidents Monday-Thursday.


But that is pretty much what they'd be doing anyway. What makes you
think that your risk flying 50 hours per year only on weekend would
be any less than the guy in the next hanger who flys 50 hours a year
but on any day of the week?

If insurers were counting hours, this discussion would be moot. They
may be estimating hours in their formula, but the accuracy of that
estimate is terrible if the same number is being used for a weekend
pilot as a daily pilot.

In fact since there will be more recreational pilots flying on
weekend the chance that you would run into one of them
increases.

Sure, but that risk is the same for a pilot insured daily flying on
the weekend (neglecting the experience factor, which is a variable
that's already accounted for in the premium).

There would also be the added concern that on one of your weekend
jaunts you would be more likely to fly in worst weather because
waiting until Monday isn't an option.

I disagree. A pilot willing to fly in unsafe weather will have more
opportunities to do so if they can fly every day. The pilot confined
to weekend travel only flies weekends for a reason. If their schedule
prevents them from flights on workdays, then being insured on weekdays
doesn't make the better weather flight time any more viable.

But it all boils down to the fact that the insurance company's risk
would not be reduced enough for you to even notice the difference.

That's a reasonable speculation, but I'm more inclined to think the
very small market and lack of competition is preventing insurers from
taking advantage of this. If no provider breaks the 365 day insurance
trend, all providers can collect artificially high premiums from
weekend pilots.

You can speculate from heere to forever, but most everyone you've listed is
falt out wrong.


Do you understand why pilots that fly a lot of hours ( 250 hrs / year)
have greatly reduced insurance rates?
--
Matt Barrow
Performance Homes, LLC.
Cheyenne, WY

Reading Justin's posts, he sounds just like the kind of buyer Cirrus is
looking for.

On 2007-07-12, john smith wrote:

Reading Justin's posts, he sounds just like the kind of buyer Cirrus
is looking for.

Please explain why. I've been planning to study Cirrus models,
because I know they have the side stick, and IMO, the side stick is an
uncommon but superior design. I have yet to fly one, but conceptually
it makes more sense than a center stick or a yoke.

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

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.

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

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.

On Jul 11, 7:09 pm, Justin Gombos
wrote:
On 2007-07-11, Morgans wrote:

Think of it this way. How would you not flying Mon-Thurs make you
less likely to crash or break something, resulting in a claim?

I'm figuring air time to be directly proportional to risk.

Inverse. The more you fly the lower your insurance rates. A guy who
only occassionally flys on the weekend is quite a large risk compared
to the semi-pro filying day in and day out.
f
-Robert

o9090
"Justin Gombos" wrote in message
news:qEyli.17302$t05.10409@trndny09...
On 2007-07-12, john smith wrote:

Reading Justin's posts, he sounds just like the kind of buyer Cirrus
is looking for.

Please explain why. I've been planning to study Cirrus models,
because I know they have the side stick, and IMO, the side stick is an
uncommon but superior design. I have yet to fly one, but conceptually
it makes more sense than a center stick or a yoke.

Figures.

Cirrus is getting the reputation that the V tail Bonanza used to have, and that
is of a "Doctor Killer."

That is the general name given an airplane that attracts people that have the
desire (and the money) to get into an airplane that is too fast and too complex
for their level of experience, and end up killing themselves.

I question if it is for you, though, because of the money. (you seem to not have
enough of it, if you are trying to save on insurance by only buying for 3 days
of the week)
--
Jim in NC