How Do They Know

U

Unregistered

Guest
I have a fully valid 1st class medical licence, and I am very happy with it... but I see so many people on this forum asking about hiding different conditions from their AME or whatever, and I was just wondering if that works? Don't they request your medical records?

Do you basically just keep flying until you have an accident? Then they pull your records?

I know this sounds like an "I'm asking for a friend" post, but since I am anonymous I don't really care. Part of me does wonder if I ever got diagnosed with something bad if I would tell or not. I love flying and understand why a person wouldn't want to be grounded -- especially for life.
 
Bruce loves these kinds of posts. :)
 
If you pay cash for medicl care and use a fake name they will never know unless you die on the job or your future exwife rats on you.
 
Gamble if you want...but, the numbers that CAMI gave is that ultimately they reject only about 0.1% of medicals...If you are honest and work with the FAA you have a very good chance of continuing to fly...if they catch you in a lie, they can strip away all your certificates.
 
mnewb1 said:
Gamble if you want...but, the numbers that CAMI gave is that ultimately they reject only about 0.1% of medicals...If you are honest and work with the FAA you have a very good chance of continuing to fly...if they catch you in a lie, they can strip away all your certificates.
Click to expand...

If you are a working pilot an accident can make you unemployable anyway who cares if they pull your tickets then. If you are a hobby pilot and the choice is lie n' fly(until you possibly, maybe someday, get caught) or tell the truth and stay on the ground it is a wonder people ever tell the truth. There isn't much downside to cheating the system.:lol:
 
Heh. In for a penny, in for a pound. Just stay honest, better all 'round.
 
Under the Affordable (it's not) Care (it's not) Act (it is that) of 2010, the diagnosis codes, procedure codes and pharmacy codes are not protected. They are in huge databases.

Of course as part of the wheeling and dealing the last night before the bill was passed, the USA was offered access to these for no charge. So the agency can just look up in about six minutes by DOB and SSN and see you codes. They don't, unless there is a cause.

So you can gamble but you will lose.
Just work with your AME to get whatever you develop documented well enough to get a special. And PAY the AME for his work....not just for exams.
 
If you don't want to declare,go light sport. You will still be flying with all your little secrets.
 
Hell, when I applied, I could have lied about a couple things in my history with almost zero chance of ever getting caught (FAA doesn't yet have access to medical records held outside the sovereign authority of the United States)...cluster headaches and a kidney stone.

That said, I did not. Couple of reasons: 1) I'm a fundamentally honest person, and 2) If the FAA has an issue with these things, I'm not enough of a medical expert to determine if I'm safe to fly by myself or not. Better to get the appropriate records to the experts and let them give me a reasonable assessment of the risk.
 
mnewb1 said:
Gamble if you want...but, the numbers that CAMI gave is that ultimately they reject only about 0.1% of medicals.
Click to expand...

What does that number mean? Does it mean that 99.9% of the U.S. population would pass? Or, does it mean that those who know they are likely to fail either don't go in or lie about their condition?

Depending on the problem, simple denial can help you maintain your medical certificate. For a while.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
What does that number mean? Does it mean that 99.9% of the U.S. population would pass? Or, does it mean that those who know they are likely to fail either don't go in or lie about their condition?

Depending on the problem, simple denial can help you maintain your medical certificate. For a while.
Click to expand...

What they said is that of all airmen applying for a medical, ultimately 99.9% are allowed to fly. Meaning if you work with the FAA on your medical you have an excellent chance of an SI that will keep you flying.
 
ClimbnSink said:
There isn't much downside to cheating the system.:lol:
Click to expand...

Get caught flying without a medical and you'll face a certificate suspension and/or civil fines. Compare that to...

...knowingly falsifying government documents. Get caught and you may face criminal charges. A pretty big downside, IMHO.
 
Or......have an accident that involves an insurance company. They will comb thru your aircraft medical very carefully. They do not want to pay you. Of course they employ pros to screen your every statement. You lie, you lose.
 
You guys have xway too much faith in the system working. It only matters if you believe it matters.
 
ClimbnSink said:
You guys have xway too much faith in the system working. It only matters if you believe it matters.
Click to expand...

You assume that because it's the Gov. It doesn't work,every now and then they get it right. Would not want to be the one they get their hooks into.
 
When a hangar collapsed on my airplane, Avemco agent looked at it took pictures. They paid the full amount in 10 days.....but.....he added " if this had been a moving accident of any kind, the investigation would have been very different and quite lengthy"
 
Incidentally, the AHC act has little to do with your private information. As the intelligence author James Bamford wrote not long ago. " the government already knows everything about you and has for some time" unquote.
 
Unregistered said:
When a hangar collapsed on my airplane, Avemco agent looked at it took pictures. They paid the full amount in 10 days.....but.....he added " if this had been a moving accident of any kind, the investigation would have been very different and quite lengthy"
Click to expand...

I've adjusted a few GA aircraft claims, never saw a lengthy investigation by the insurance.
 
Unregistered said:
Or......have an accident that involves an insurance company. They will comb thru your aircraft medical very carefully. They do not want to pay you. Of course they employ pros to screen your every statement. You lie, you lose.
Click to expand...
FWIW -- I've never heard of an actual case of that happening.
 
Could be because you haven't seen that many. Insurance company's do not want to pay, and will find any loophole to deny payment. My nephew is Vice President of one and we have had conversations at length about this. The disaster at New Orleans would be a classic example. I repeat what the lead appraiser at Avemco told me when I complemented him on how quickly they paid me.
 
Unregistered said:
Or......have an accident that involves an insurance company. They will comb thru your aircraft medical very carefully. They do not want to pay you. Of course they employ pros to screen your every statement. You lie, you lose.
Click to expand...

I just happened to have a lawyer from my insurance company look at my plane after my landing incident. He was on his way to Oshkosh and it was a 15 minute detour. He looked at the plane for a few minutes, spent 2 minutes looking at my logbook, medical, and certificate, then bought me lunch. They paid within a couple weeks after I sent them the bills.
 
If instead, you had an engine out on takeoff, went into the underbrush, injuring yourself and maybe a passenger, or the passenger was killed, it could have been very different. Especially if you had misrepresented yourself. Then of course you have the government to deal with on top of this, plus the lawyer for the injured , maimed, or killed. I would venture that in the case of the Doctor in the MU2 it will not be cut and dried.
 
Unregistered said:
Incidentally, the AHC act has little to do with your private information. As the intelligence author James Bamford wrote not long ago. " the government already knows everything about you and has for some time" unquote.
Click to expand...

The ACA has a lot to do with your personal information, and making it legally and conveniently available to others, including those for whom it is none of their business.

Yes, previously the government theoretically could always violate the law and/or use force to get whatever information they wanted, but I don't know that we've previously seen quite the banana republic type of lawlessness here that we've seen over the past five years.


JKG
 
Obviously it's not just the government doing this. Bam ford was explaining how corporations also get information, sell it to each other, your ss number, where you live, how much you earn, what your worth, on and on. And no we are no where near being a banana republic, that's Fox News speak.
 
Unregistered said:
Obviously it's not just the government doing this. Bam ford was explaining how corporations also get information, sell it to each other, your ss number, where you live, how much you earn, what your worth, on and on. And no we are no where near being a banana republic, that's Fox News speak.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we're not a Banana Republic, we're a Finance Plutocracy.
 
Unregistered said:
Or......have an accident that involves an insurance company. They will comb thru your aircraft medical very carefully. They do not want to pay you. Of course they employ pros to screen your every statement. You lie, you lose.
Click to expand...
That's just not how it works per this industry outsider. Insurance fraud and cost control tends to be done programmatically. If there is a pattern of fraud that needs to be stemmed, you put a program in place to detect it and stop it. If there is a large event that creates a large number of expensive claims, you put some cost controls in place. I'm sure there are many ways aviation claims might be managed and controlled but a policy of trying nit pick every claim with the intent of trying not to pay isn't good business except for small time crooks. All insurance companies are greedy but not necessarily crooked.
 
Read the policy. They mostly have a compliance with "all applicable FAR's clause".

Read, then decide.
 
Ahhhh yes, the small print. And don't forget to get your lawyer to help you read this stuff. Done on purpose of course. How many times gave you heard a poor policy owner say " they told me that wasn't covered" the big arguement over Katrina was if it was wind, or on the other hand was it water damage, and on and on ad nauseum. In your current policy, is your airplane covered if you attend a fly in? Better check. Better really go over your policy carefully. I call some of this deliberate obsfuscation criminal, you call it what you want.
 
The difference between wind and flood is not anything new or restricted to Katrina. Flood damage is never covered under a homeowners policy in any state. The only Flood insurance is through the NFIP (although sometimes insurance companies sell this product for the NFIP, it's a separate product). If you cannot be bothered to read through the few pages of your policy, this is no fault of the insurance companies. Figuring out what was wind and what was flood damage was not an issue of "weaseling out" it was an issue of determining which policy pays. Every insurer I have worked claims for has stated policy of "pay them every dime we owe them" and in quite a few instances payed on top of that to get the files closed. A few decades back the insurance companies changed their tunes from screwing people out of money when they started losing Bad Faith law suits and huge punitive penalties in the millions were applied to $10k claims.
 
Here's how it's figured, if the water enters the house before it hits the ground, it's windstorm damage. If water hits the ground and then enters the ground, it's flood damage. It's pretty simple. If you don't carry flood insurance, is that the insurer's fault?

How many insurance claims have you personally had or seen one have where they got screwed over?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Flood is never covered under a homeowner policy, as Henning rightly mentions. More than most insurance knowledge, this is something that most purchasers of homeowner insurance are aware of. The flood damage exclusion in the homeowner policy is very clearly defined and described. If you didn't buy flood insurance, don't expect flood coverage. (Or you could take your agent to court and contend that s/he didn't advise you of the availability of flood insurance. And you might win, depending on what your agent can provide as proof that s/he did advise you. If I sold you the homeowner policy, you'll have a companion flood policy, and maybe an excess flood policy, or you'll have signed your desire not to carry flood coverage at time of policy purchase. Not that I'm a fan of this.)

While I have personal experience with claim denials that were inappropriate, this is not especially common. Insurance companies are rightly scared of Bad Faith lawsuits and associated regulatory fines. A true layman's greatest struggle is understanding what they need and whether and how an insurance policy(ies) meets those needs. For that, you need a good agent who speaks your language instead of Insurance-ese, and you need to read your entire policy. A real good agent might provide you complete policy forms before you even bind coverage.

In the insurance purchaser's defense, there are some coverage carve-outs that nearly no one knows about unless they've literally read their policy front-to-back, and those can be a cause of anger during your "time of greatest need." Example: your dishwasher fails catastrophically and floods your kitchen, damaging the wood floor. Adjuster says your floor will be replaced but your dishwasher will not. Why? The "cause of loss" (the dishwasher) is excluded. Who knew? Only those who read their policy. Anything you can do about it even if you did know? Not really.

- In the biz
 
Last edited by a moderator:
http://www.avemco.com/Articles/ART0006-2011.pdf

http://www.civilaviationinsurance.com.au/FAQs-Civil-Aviation-Insurance.php#claims

http://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/patch-the-holes-in-your-aviation-insurance

http://www.nbaa.org/events/amc/2012...030-Aviation-Insurance-Claims-Case-Review.pdf

http://www.jetinsurance.com/ins_pvt_firsttime.html#claimdeny

I'm not seeing violations of regulations such as VFR into IMC, landing light bulb from tractor supply, operating below the minimum legal altitude, etc. showing up as reasons for claim denial.

Claiming to have a medical that you don't (or, in some cases, letting it expire) will result in denial.
 
Last edited:
Unregistered said:
Could be because you haven't seen that many. Insurance company's do not want to pay, and will find any loophole to deny payment. My nephew is Vice President of one and we have had conversations at length about this. The disaster at New Orleans would be a classic example. I repeat what the lead appraiser at Avemco told me when I complemented him on how quickly they paid me.
Click to expand...

I have never heard of an insurance company even checking the medicals of people involved in a claim. If you have solid proof that aviation insurance can be denighed due to GA medical status I would like to see it.

What about LSA where no medical is needed? So if a tornado wrecks my plane and I have let my medical lapse I won't be covered? Another example.. I lose my medical and wreck my plane on the ground taxiing. I'm not covered? :dunno:

I believe this is an aviation myth. If you have insurance your plane is covered.

Auto insurance covers my vehicles if I let my drivers license lapse. :dunno:

I certainly could be wrong in some instances, but in general your plane is covered any time it is flown. Obviously, you would need to have "in motion" insurance.
 
Last edited:
So it seems like most of the people talking about why you shouldn't have these points:
* It's dishonest
* Don't be a dick
* It's probably for your safety
* You might get caught

but for the last one, I haven't seen anyone provide /evidence/ of it -- just fear. Which is fine, I am not saying you should do it, but when I started this thread I was more looking for cases where people were actually caught or what they do to catch you...

So there is a national db, do they check that when they give you your first medical?
 
Guy Who Started Thread said:
So it seems like most of the people talking about why you shouldn't have these points:
* It's dishonest
* Don't be a dick
* It's probably for your safety
* You might get caught

but for the last one, I haven't seen anyone provide /evidence/ of it -- just fear. Which is fine, I am not saying you should do it, but when I started this thread I was more looking for cases where people were actually caught or what they do to catch you...

So there is a national db, do they check that when they give you your first medical?
Click to expand...


Even before 2010 when the big medical database became available they did a cross check with the Social Security database and busted a bunch of pilots. Are they doing scans at initial medical?:dunno: Will they in the future, I'd bet they will, it's a simple issue of software integration now that everyone is required to go through Med Express.
 
Geico266 said:
I have never heard of an insurance company even checking the medicals of people involved in a claim. If you have solid proof that aviation insurance can be denighed due to GA medical status I would like to see it.

...
I believe this is an aviation myth. If you have insurance your plane is covered.
Click to expand...

Here's one. Recent court decision confirmed in favor of the insurer, but located in Canada.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f9300ca3-24c3-4263-af9f-8ef6bc1a0860
... case of Mr. Nicholas Gudzinski, who was killed on August 19, 2006, when he lost control of his aircraft after making a slow-speed pass at a low altitude. Gudzinski had earned his Canadian private pilot’s license in 1993, but his most recent medical certificate had expired on June 1, 2005.

Gudzinski’s estate submitted an insurance claim for damage to the aircraft as a result of the crash. The aviation insurer denied the claim, on the basis that the policy only provided coverage to an “approved pilot … who has the required license.”

The estate launched a lawsuit and the matter came before a Chambers Master of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench as a “Special Case for the opinion of the Court.” The Master ruled that the language of the policy was ambiguous, and the policy only required the pilot to have obtained a license to fly an aircraft without subsequent compliance with the legislative requirements. Accordingly, the Master ruled that the policy provided coverage.

The insurer launched an appeal and on April 26, 2011, a judge overturned the Master’s ruling. The judge ruled that a “required license” under the policy meant that the license had to be valid.

The estate then appealed the judge’s ruling. In a unanimous decision issued on January 9, 2012, the Alberta Court of Appeal confirmed that Mr. Gudzinski’s aviation insurance policy was not ambiguous and the insurers of his aircraft were entitled to rely upon the exclusion that the policy “applies only if your aircraft is flown by an approved pilot … who has the required license … to fly.”

The Court ruled that reference to a license means (both in ordinary speech and in law), a license in force. What Mr. Gudzinski had was not enough. What was “required” to let him fly was a pilot’s license with an up-to-date Medical Certificate. Since he did not have the Certificate, his license was expired.

As stated by the court, “such a paper may be decorative or a precious souvenir, but it is not a license.”
Click to expand...
 
Or this one.

Court upholds insurance denial of payment to heirs due to the pilots expired medical certificate at the time of crash, per 1987 decision.

National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Miller

http://www.lawlink.com/research/caselevel3/64360

These are just the contested cases. How many more were denied without proceeding through the court system?
 
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 365 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.
Back
Top