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 
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.
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.
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:
My current broker here hints that my current 3 year policy may well be the last time I can do any insurance other than third party liability at all as more and more insurers rid themselves of aviation insurance entirely, not only GA but also airliners. Similar woes are reported out of that sector as well consequently, quoting the Boeing Max scandal as a reason. One wonders where this is headed.
I am wondering why especially the lower end side of the GA market is seemingly such a bad business compared to boating. A few years ago I was part of a small owner group of a 10m yacht we paid AFAIK around 1500-1700/y with Pantaenius for 3rd party liability + 130k agreed hull value (and new-for-old replacement when necessary); the numbers and situation seem comparable to our part of GA with a less dire outlook …
G-SLOT wrote:
The current state of the market seems to preclude such “reasonable” extensions.
The current state of the market is potentially very worrying for GA owners in general by the looks of it.
It appears as if many of the insurers are getting out of the aviation business altogether as they consider it bad risks. The remaining few can then do with the premiums what they wish, as always with close monopolies.
Recent renewals see premium spikes of up to know unknown proportions, I managed to get mine “down” to about 10% this year when renewing from the original offer of close to 30% for the exact same conditions. I hear from folks from the US who can’t get insurance at all, either for lack of experience, age or whatever reason is quoted. Which is funny, as in the US the covers are much smaller anyhow, I hear figures up to one million $ for liability, which personally I would take as a much too low sum to cover any claims particularly in the US.
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.
My current broker here hints that my current 3 year policy may well be the last time I can do any insurance other than third party liability at all as more and more insurers rid themselves of aviation insurance entirely, not only GA but also airliners. Similar woes are reported out of that sector as well consequently, quoting the Boeing Max scandal as a reason. One wonders where this is headed.
AeroPlus wrote:
I have been flying over war zones and through countries which were excluded on the insurance policy. Think of places like Yemen or some countries in Africa or Syria (during the war). So, I would just call up the insurance company and discuss it with them. They would then issue a new insurance policy and take out the excluded countries and they often did so without any extra costs.
That seems to have been the case as recently as a couple of years ago. The current state of the market seems to preclude such “reasonable” extensions.
I have been flying over war zones and through countries which were excluded on the insurance policy. Think of places like Yemen or some countries in Africa or Syria (during the war). So, I would just call up the insurance company and discuss it with them. They would then issue a new insurance policy and take out the excluded countries and they often did so without any extra costs.
Ibra wrote:
but it should cover Greenland takeoff and and climb up to some airspace boundary
Not an airspace boundary, but the edge of the 12 mile zone. Article 2 of the ICAO convention is crystal clear: “For the purposes of this Convention the territory of a State shall be deemed to be the land areas and territorial waters adjacent thereto under the sovereignty, suzerainty, protection or mandate of such State”. The “territorial waters” of the USA and Canada extend 12 miles from the coastline.
But what is the wording in a US / Canadian insurance? How is the coverage area defined in a standard US policy? Can any of the US-based forumites advice, @Silvaire perhaps?
I agree the insurance does not cover landing in Canada or US (where insurance is not even mandatory), but it should cover Greenland takeoff and and climb up to some airspace boundary?
High likely the answer depends how you word the question: it’s valid as long as the present crash point is valid past/future flight path is irrelevant? also discussing insurance validity outside the scope of accident location/time of impact and type of allowed operation is rather moot
I doubt it’s like a whole FPL that fails to validate when when you drop out of coverage ?
Here is another interesting cutoff: insurance start a 2359UTC you depart at 2200UTC you crash at 0100UTC, I am sure you are covered, for avoidance of doubts and let’s remind all pilots that they should not fly without valid insurance , the scenario I describe is done by everybody each year, when they get a new policy or change the underwriter, no one will land in a middle of flight to insure (pun intended) it’s covered by two overlapping policies
