ds – they gave me a rough price of GBP 11k for a $1M hull cover, and this includes hot starts because they treat that as a “pilot error”.
In the case I mentined above, the insurance dis not pay.
What an insurance pays out what it doesn’t, depends on a lot of factors. First of all, the country where the aircraft is insured. Based on that, insurances are subject to very different legal frameworks. Then it depends on the insurance company, and certainly also on the person working the claim.
Re that pilot error thing, this goes round and round in circles and leads nowhere. In principle, I would agree. But some insurances – see previous paragrapgh – would say that it is negligent because such an error is simply a matter of not following a mandatory checkist. It’s the same with gear up landings. I would agree that it’s a pilot error (i.e. exactly what one would seek insurance against), but there definitely are cases where a gear up landing was not paid out, as it was considered an act of negligence.
We will never get to the point where we can make absolute statements about what is covered and what isn’t.
Sorry I don’t have the breakdown of the 300k.
In the UK, insurance does cover negligence – any level of negligence.
What they usually won’t pay for is a flight illegal to start with e.g. expired CofA / medical / etc etc etc.
There is no way to run up a 300k bill taking the wings off and transporting a Cessna from a German island to the mainland. So I reckon the 300k included an engine overhaul, dictated as appropriate given that the engine was near TBO (and maybe cracks were found), and the reason it took so long was probably because the syndicate would not agree on how to proceed (which is pretty usual in syndicates – many of them are like the EU 
).
In a SEP you need to be able to write a cheque for £30k anytime.
In a SET you need to be able to write a cheque for £300k anytime 
I don’t think the syndicate politics are any different; in both cases the biggest problem by far is finding the right people.
Peter wrote:
I don’t think the full story is coming out above, because I have just phoned up Haywards – UK’s biggest GA insurer – and they gave me a rough price of GBP 11k for a $1M hull cover, and this includes hot starts because they treat that as a “pilot error”.OTOH one guy I have flown with, who flies PT6s a lot, says you have to be pretty “slow” to do a hot start on a PT6…
Yes you should never get a hot start if you everything correctly but we are talking about someone not being careful, maybe forgetting to check the battery voltage and then getting distracted during the start sequence. Or the classic forgetting to turn on the ignitors then starting and flicking them on during the start sequence with dramatic effect.
You can also get heat damage from the failure of a component rather than pilot error eg an FCU.
I had hot starts specifically covered in my Meridian, if they are included by Haywards underwriters (I think they are actually a broker rather than underwriting themselves) then that is great. I am surprised though that they see it as covered. In the US it is typically excluded.
In the US example coverage was denied blaming operator error.
Yes, they checked with the actual insurer and got back to me.
I’ve been with them since 2002 and they are a really good firm.
But how much would a hot start cost? Presumably it depends on how bad?
You can also get heat damage from the failure of a component rather than pilot error eg an FCU.
That would IMHO never be insurable – same with any other engine failure, SEP or whatever. Hence my £300k comment
Haywards are totally reliable and I have never had an issue with them. I would fully expect this to be an insurable loss. A good friend of mine that was involved with Cirrus for many years runs a group around a small twin jet and some of the problems mentioned here are not problems. Of course it isnt cheap and of course there will be some currency requirments but I really dont think they are as demanding as it has been suggested or that there isnt any good reason to run a TBM700 on a syndicate. Fnding sufficient members interested (depending on the part of the country) is by far and away the biggest challenge! I very nearly syndicated a DA42 (glad I didnt) but the time and effort involved in getting together the “right” people was significant. I had the numbers (6) but in the end the 42 was too unproven. Personally I think it would only make sense were there two or three individuals who had the resources and desire and at a real stretch four – any more and I think you are asking for trouble.
I have just got this from an experienced pilot:
JasonC wrote:
In the US example coverage was denied blaming operator error.
Operator or pilot?
There are people operating a JetProp in a syndicate, so why not a TBM? Isn’t there is even a UK based operator that rents a TBM?
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I think you are asking for trouble
Sharing an aircraft must be a difficult thing, and I am a bit surprised to hear that from Peter :-)
Aren’t you afraid not to share the same philosophy ?
To argue about the necessity or not to change or expect something ?
You are maintaining your aircraft to the highest standard, regardless of cost. How will it be when you are two, three or four ?
Didn’t the TBM900 benefit from a brand new automatic start-up sequencing for some reason ?
PetitCessnaVoyageur wrote:
Sharing an aircraft must be a difficult thing, and I am a bit surprised to hear that from Peter :-)
Aren’t you afraid not to share the same philosophy ?
To argue about the necessity or not to change or expect something ?
You are maintaining your aircraft to the highest standard, regardless of cost. How will it be when you are two, three or four ?
I think that is the key. Two or three of you can share the same philosphy – four with difficulty, unless you are very lucky, more, almost impossible!
Especially with a relatively costly aircraft the problem will come if there are those trying to do it “on the cheap”. That will lead in short time to conflict. At a different scale I ran a group of four, everything got done and everyone was able to meet the costs without it being a drama. It worked exceptionally well and wasnt a problem managing. Around a SEP you have a chance with a few more members, but not that many more before you start to run into the usual problems.
