PowerFlarm rentals

On 11/21/2010 8:56 PM, Brad wrote:
On Nov 21, 7:57 pm, Eric wrote:


If the economics are so compelling, the insurance companies ought to
be the ones pushing for it. What says Costello?

I'd like to hear an insurance company comment on it, but I suspect an
insurance company may not benefit from something like Flarm. One simple
case: all pilots equip with Flarm, company A's insurance payouts go
down, their competitors offer policies at lower premiums that company A
has to match to keep the customers, and ta-da! their profits are back to
pre-Flarm levels. So, no financial benefit to the insurance company.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

that, Eric............in a nutshell is why insurance company are
bloodsucking parasites.

That's way too harsh - Costello has served us well for decades; besides,
I didn't say or imply they wouldn't or didn't want to do something like
that, only suggesting a reason why the economics might not be compelling
to them. I believe they are concerned about our safety.

It's not like smoking, where policy holders that didn't smoke did reduce
the companies payouts, so it was worth enticing those individuals with
reduced premiums. One pilot buying a Flarm, or using it in low risk
areas won't affect his risk, and the very small numbers of pilots and
fatalities (compared to smoking) make it an actuarial nightmare. The
economics are not their fault.

But, if we do reduce the collisions and fatalities with Flarm or other
methods, it should make future premiums lower than they otherwise would
be. But that's really a small part of the benefit of reduced collisions,
given the current low cost of liability insurance. It's the "staying
alive" thing that is our payoff, personally and for the sport.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz