Insurance for used home built?

Taft

Taft

Filing Flight Plan
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Taft
A friend of mine told me that I should expect not to be able to buy insurance if I go the home built route. I’m considering a Glasair currently. I’ve got ~300 hours (most in SR22) and IFR. Any idea if he’s right?
 
It very much depends on the airplane. You wouldn’t have a problem getting an RV insured, but a G-III is probably a different story. Call a broker and get the scoop.
 
There are a number of insurance companies that serve the homebuilt market. A little Google of experimental forums should turn up some options.

I have my homebuilt insured by Avemco, but they don't specialize in them. They just happened to have a good rate for me over the past few years.
 
Insurance for a homebuilt generally isn't a problem unless it's a really obscure or high performance type.
 
If we can insure Lancairs, I see no reason a Glasair would be uninsurable. The rates will likely be higher than the sr22 though.
 
My ride is about as obscure as they get for kit aircraft (Merlin GT), but no problem getting insurance.
 
These days it isn’t as easy as some guys will tell you. The insurer population is shrinking. Underwriters in the aviation segment are down nearly 50% in the past 2 years. Rates, when you can get them quoted, are high. Lots of factors come into play. Aircraft type, engine type, pilot experience, etc. Get quotes and read the exclusions carefully. Beware, some policies exclude in flight coverage. Avemco covers my exp but has a value limit that’s about 2/3 of what my plane’s worth, so even with rather expensive hull coverage I’m at risk for six figures of the value. And that’s for a 20+ year customer with multiple planes and no claims.
 
When I was plane shopping I got quotes for a Rv-10. It was easy to find insurance, and the rates weren’t that bad, but the hull coverage was capped well below the current value of the aircraft.
 
Salty said:
When I was plane shopping I got quotes for a Rv-10. It was easy to find insurance, and the rates weren’t that bad, but the hull coverage was capped well below the current value of the aircraft.
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Where'd you run into a cap (what value?)?
 
Salty said:
the highest I found was $200k for the rv10
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Mine is at $200k not-in motion as I go through final assembly. They also quoted for $225K in-motion when I asked for that amount. $225K didn't seem to be an issue at all. All of this was as of 3ish weeks ago.
 
kyleb said:
Mine is at $200k not-in motion as I go through final assembly. They also quoted for $225K in-motion when I asked for that amount. $225K didn't seem to be an issue at all. All of this was as of 3ish weeks ago.
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Interesting. My research was about 6 or 8 weeks ago.
 
kyleb said:
Mine is at $200k not-in motion as I go through final assembly. They also quoted for $225K in-motion when I asked for that amount. $225K didn't seem to be an issue at all. All of this was as of 3ish weeks ago.
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What company did you use for quotes?
 
Inflation has run a number on the economy, which underwriters are more than happy to exploit. Home insurance renewal quote came back with a 62% increase (re-shopping as we speak). Waiting on the aircraft renewal to get back to me, will be surprised if they don't use that excuse to justify the chicanery of upping a policy 62% with no claims or improvements. Unfortunately, with exiting players on the aviation side, we're even more of a captured market, which means it's probably gonna come down to further under-insuring the spam can this year if this keeps up.

You shouldn't have trouble getting quoted for experimentals, but the "economy" is on monopoly money mode right now, so BOHICA. Those additional fed rate hikes can't get here soon enough.
 
Salty said:
Interesting. My research was about 6 or 8 weeks ago.
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Avemco's limit on my exp Cub is $200K but they'll insure Carbon Cubs up to $350K since they have an established market value, but I know of a 10K hour pilot who's getting the $200K limit on a brand new FX3 so apparently they adjust their limits for different pilots and locations. I wouldn't take the advice on this thread as anything more than entertainment. Any new buyer needs to get his own quote. Too many variables.
 
Taft said:
A friend of mine told me that I should expect not to be able to buy insurance if I go the home built route. I’m considering a Glasair currently. I’ve got ~300 hours (most in SR22) and IFR. Any idea if he’s right?
Click to expand...

Have you called any insurance companies and asked them?
 
Dana said:
Insurance for a homebuilt generally isn't a problem unless it's a really obscure or high performance type.
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Like a Glasair III for example.
 
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