Sebastian_H wrote:
I am wondering why especially the lower end side of the GA market is seemingly such a bad business compared to boating.
I wonder if it’s because of the general development in aviation, the Max crisis is quoted quote often for the rise in premiums across the board, as apparently confidence in airline and aviation safety is compromised.
The other bit is probably that the GA market is quite small in comparison, so some underwriters may well decide it is not worth the (imagined) hassle as opposed to car or even boat insurance. I am not really familiar with the boating scene either, but I guess the average consequence of boating incidents may well lack the usual severity of airplane accidents.
What I could imagine as well is that in many absolutely repairable cases they are simply outpriced by the exorbitant labor costs and lead to write offs even for relatively small incidents like gear up landings or similar.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Folks I know over there tell me they are not worried about much in terms of FAA regulation or gas prices but they are seriously worried about the prospect of having to pack up flying because they can not get insurance anymore or insurance premiums skyrocketing leaving them outpriced. Most of those are not “new” pilots with less than 1k hrs but people who have been flying for decades with reasonable experience and no past claims
I just renewed my insurance, $830 per year. As far as I remember it’s been about that much for the last 10 years, maybe a $100 increase over that period.
Silvaire wrote:
I just renewed my insurance, $830 per year. As far as I remember it’s been about that much for the last 10 years, maybe a $100 increase over that period.
Lucky man. Then again, from everything I know you fly extremely simple types. I can unfortunately attest to a severely tightening insurance market for anything a little more complex. For example, we could not get insurance for a SR22 in our club. A friend who owns a P210 is having serious issues renewing his coverage – all of a sudden the insurers want him to go to a specialist ATO to get high-altitude training, although the FAA does not require it for the type (service ceiling too low). He has owned the plane for years and it was never an issue. Next up are age limits for complex airplanes. Our club has a C210 (NA) and talking to insurers it was casually mentioned that in a private ownership situation the cut-off would be 70 years of age. The list goes on.
I rarely agree with @Mooney on his usual doomsday scenarios, but here I think he’s 100% correct. If that trend continues, it’ll be very, very detrimental to GA.
Most of people I fly with in the US including myself have over time gravitated to RVs and similar planes, plus some other stuff like Chipmunks and C180s, ages mainly between 40s and mid-70s. Nobody in that group has mentioned any insurance issues. One guy of 81 years old who flies retractable Glasair mentioned he cannot get hull insurance now, only liability. Maybe its mainly a certified retractable thing, don’t know. That might affect me some day if my savings continue on track to buy an SF 260 but the only constant is change, for a while not too long ago rates were going down not up, and I’m not a big fan of hull insurance regardless. I don’t want an insurance company mixed up with fixing my stuff, choosing who would do the work etc.
I was paying $1200 annually for two planes but sold one because its too much work to maintain two planes, three cars and nine motorcycles. Insurance cost is not a factor. I don’t even talk to my aircraft insurance agent. He sends an annual renewal offer with his annual questionnaire, making the latter redundant. So I just mail him the money and later get a copy of the policy by email. Not a complex relationship 
