Complex/HP insurance for low time private pilot

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T Bird

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T Bird
Looking at buying my first plane, honing in on a Comanche but also have been looking at and considering Bonanza, Mooney, even a Navion, etc. Well there's a Comanche I'm very interested in so I talked to an insurance agent about insuring it. I have just over 100 hours, no IR yet, no retract/HP/complex time logged. Well I fully expected the high cost estimate (premium between $5-7k, a bit higher than I expected but ok I can deal with it for the first year), but man you should've seen the shock on my face when I heard I'd likely need 40+ hours of dual in the plane before I could even fly it solo... My plan is to buy a plane to fly a ton in the next year while knocking out IR, commercial, possibly CFI, etc. but that also fits my mission a year from now which the Comanche does nearly perfectly. But that 40 hour dual requirement before solo would be a real pain in the ass to coordinate and would interfere with my plans and timing.

So my questions... Is this really the reality in the current market? I know insurance costs/requirements have been going up and I understand the high cost but from people I've talked to and reading about others in a similar position I was expecting like 10-15 dual required then a certain amount of solo hours before passengers. 40 dual seems absurd to me. Has anyone else been in a similar situation recently (like this year) with low time and insured a retractable, HP plane? What was your experience and dual requirements/costs? Trying to figure out if I'll just have to deal with this or if it'll be possible to find insurance without that high of a dual requirement.
 
What is wrong with 40 hrs dual? Knock it out.

If that is a big deal then be realistic and buy a fixed gear, non-high performance, non-complex aircraft and build hours in that.

@ 100 hrs TT, be grateful the insurance company is offering coverage at any cost with any conditions.
 
I was faced with the same thing. I had to do 25 hours of dual in my new-to-me 206 before soloing. That included getting my high performance endorsement. The time was worthwhile, and it made me a better pilot. The second year I shopped the insurance and got down from $8k to $4k.
 
eman1200 said:
Why not get your complex (and some hours) in a rental, then try insurance again?
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I asked the agent about that and he basically said it wouldn't affect anything. I certainly could do that, figured if it doesn't change much why not just do it in the plane I'd own and be flying but yeah I'm open to that.

Mongoose Aviator said:
What is wrong with 40 hrs dual? Knock it out.

If that is a big deal then be realistic and buy a fixed gear, non-high performance, non-complex aircraft and build hours in that.

@ 100 hrs TT, be grateful the insurance company is offering coverage at any cost with any conditions.
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If that's what it takes yeah I'll probably just find a way to knock it out, I just think it seems quite a bit over the top and I've probably been skewed by several stories of others in a nearly identical position needing only 15-20 dual max, which is quite a bit of a difference. But those were mostly a few years ago so maybe it's just changed. Don't want to come across like I'm whining about it, was just caught off guard and looking for more insight so I can adjust my expectations.

Gray Ghost said:
I was faced with the same thing. I had to do 25 hours of dual in my new-to-me 206 before soloing. That included getting my high performance endorsement. The time was worthwhile, and it made me a better pilot. The second year I shopped the insurance and got down from $8k to $4k.
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When was that? 25 seems much more reasonable. Not pure apples to apples as that's not a retract although a bit more HP (not sure if 260 vs 300 would even matter much, though I figure the retract would).

asicer said:
I think they factor in age. Are you of a certain generation?
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Nope not an issue, mid 20s (age, not year of birth)
 
brcase said:
Might not be a coincidence that 40hrs is also the minimum time required to get your instrument rating (in most cases), They my be strongly hinting you should use that 40 hours to get your instrument rating.

Brian
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That is one of my next steps regardless, but I still have to build PIC X/C time and pretty sure the dual requirement is 15 hours, most do more than 15 but I would think less than 40 -- much of that comes with a safety pilot which was my plan. If I do wind up having no choice but doing the 40 I will likely just have it be instrument training and get a fair amount of actual with an instructor as I do plan to fly IMC quite a bit down the road.
 
40 is pretty lenient IMO from the insurance company with your background. Use the time and get your IR and commercial ratings.

In the way back, my now airplane partner was told 20 dual then 20 solo before carrying passengers. That was 20 years ago for somebody with an IR / HP-Complex as well.
 
T Bird said:
Looking at buying my first plane, honing in on a Comanche but also have been looking at and considering Bonanza, Mooney, even a Navion, etc. Well there's a Comanche I'm very interested in so I talked to an insurance agent about insuring it. I have just over 100 hours, no IR yet, no retract/HP/complex time logged. Well I fully expected the high cost estimate (premium between $5-7k, a bit higher than I expected but ok I can deal with it for the first year), but man you should've seen the shock on my face when I heard I'd likely need 40+ hours of dual in the plane before I could even fly it solo... My plan is to buy a plane to fly a ton in the next year while knocking out IR, commercial, possibly CFI, etc. but that also fits my mission a year from now which the Comanche does nearly perfectly. But that 40 hour dual requirement before solo would be a real pain in the ass to coordinate and would interfere with my plans and timing.

So my questions... Is this really the reality in the current market? I know insurance costs/requirements have been going up and I understand the high cost but from people I've talked to and reading about others in a similar position I was expecting like 10-15 dual required then a certain amount of solo hours before passengers. 40 dual seems absurd to me. Has anyone else been in a similar situation recently (like this year) with low time and insured a retractable, HP plane? What was your experience and dual requirements/costs? Trying to figure out if I'll just have to deal with this or if it'll be possible to find insurance without that high of a dual requirement.
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data from 2007: I had 200 hours, instrument, but no complex. Joined an Arrow partnership and insurance requirement was 10 hours dual plus 15 solo. For P28Rs, the data showed you are most likely to land gear up in the first 25 hours.
 
With 250 hrs, no IR yet, no complex or high HP, 185K hull on new to me 182RG this year cost me 6K-required 10 hours dual and 5 hours solo. 40 dual seems excessive?
 
If you can stomach the potential loss, just get liability. At least up here in Canada, with just liability (and not in motion hull), my insurance didn't require any dual hours when I bought the Comanche. Granted, I have around 400 hours of total time, but prior to having bought the plane, I had 0 hours complex, high performance or retract time (we don't have a separate HP or Complex rating). I obviously still took a few hours of instructions in the plane until the instructor said I'm good to go, but it certainly took WAY less than 40 hours. I managed to buy the plane at a pretty good deal and figured if I do break something on it, I would make more $$$ parting it out than what the insurance would pay me. As I gain more hours in it, I upgrade the plane little by little, cosmetically and otherwise and eventually get hull coverage on it, at which point it probably won't be an issue as I'll have 100+ hours PIC in it by then.
 
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yeah they've been like that lately. Last 2 years has been really acute.

Strangely, at least in the Bonanza world, Avemco seems to be santa claus and handing out zero-checkout policies to new owners without IR. Might be worth trying them -- they seem to want to hoover up a bunch of premium from the over-tight insurance market. May as well let them. :)
 
3y ago I got a PA28R with 56h (fresh out of PPL). I had 2 hours complex at the time flying with a CFI (and no complex rating). They required 10h dual before I could fly solo.
An employee at the FBO at my airport just bought an arrow last week. He didn't have complex time. They want 10h as well. We both used Avemco.

40 seems like a lot... Not sure if it's because the comanche/bonanza ups the requirements. But needing 40h dual to fly my plane seems like beyond overkill to me.
 
Really old datapoint, but I bought my 182RG in 2000 with a new IR and about 100 hours total time. Had to have 10 hours in type (I had already gotten 2 before I started my IR).
 
350hr, 200hr complex, bought a 6 seater and they still wanted 10hr dual before passengers. Paid $4k first year. For a retract 210 w/ 4 seats they wanted 25hrs dual and it would cost $8k the first year. Obviously I walked from that nonsense.

I would seriously consider a M20C, D, E or G Mooney if you had to go retract. Don't even need complex for the 180hp versions and they still hum.
 
T Bird said:
I asked the agent about that and he basically said it wouldn't affect anything. I certainly could do that, figured if it doesn't change much why not just do it in the plane I'd own and be flying but yeah I'm open to that….
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I can’t speak for what’s going on today but I find it very hard to believe that actually having hp/complex time/endorsements before you buy a retract isn’t going to help your case. Honestly what your agent said sounds exactly like something an agent would say. When I got my mooney I had hp/complex plus a bunch of time and had zero dual requirements. Zero.
 
Two things.

1) Getting your instrument rating will help a LOT.

2) If you need 40 hours of dual, but the time you do your Complex (and HP if not a 180) and your Instrument Rating, you will have over 40 hours of dual.

So you can do your IR and Complex in rental and try again or just bite the bullet and do them in your own plane.

BTW, with over 700 retract time, Comm, IR, I needed 5 hours of dual (and 5 hours solo) when I bought my Mooney.
 
A few years ago, one of my former private pilot students bought a Bonanza and they required 25 hours of dual before they would cover him flying solo. After covering systems and emergencies, alternate gear extension, etc., we ended up flying a bunch of cross-country missions to complete the 25 hours. That amount of dual time cost him an additional $1,375.

When I bought a Bonanza long ago, the insurance company didn't require ANY dual, even though it had been more than 25 years since I last flew a retract. But I did have several thousand hours total time.
 
Buy the plane, find a CFII that the insurance will insure in it, DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME AS AN INSURED, and get your IR and endorsements over the next 40-50 hours. Then when you add your name to the insurance you will have an IR and 50 hours time in type.

Where are you at?
 
Like others have mentioned, yeah, 40 hrs dual does seem a bit overboard. However, you should sit down with your instructor and map out a plan. The dual for your IR will all count, and, realistically, you'd probably realistically need more than the 15 hr minimum anyway. You could also log some of the required commercial stuff, day and night cross country dual, etc., and have that count towards the total. Don't forget, all that dual can still be legally logged as PIC (sole manipulator of controls for rated category and class).
Anyway, at the end of logging 40 hrs of dual, you could have most of the IR and Comm requirements logged as well.
 
Just chiming in with my experience:

- Got insurance for an HP/CMP M20K after a fresh PPL (about 95 hours.. rental was so cheap I just flew a ton before checkride). The price was $8000 annually ($200k hull insurance)
- I put 150 hours in the M20K in the first 4 months. Called insurance. They said, while they told me they'd lower the price after 100 hours, they didn't expect it to be within the first year, so they didn't mention I was contractually obligated to keep the price for the first year.
- I noped out of there, and went with Avemco. They gave me $4500 for the same package.
- I cancelled my current insurance, got about $4000 back, and just put it towards Avemco, essentially paying for the year.
 
T Bird said:
Looking at buying my first plane, honing in on a Comanche but also have been looking at and considering Bonanza, Mooney, even a Navion, etc. Well there's a Comanche I'm very interested in so I talked to an insurance agent about insuring it. I have just over 100 hours, no IR yet, no retract/HP/complex time logged. Well I fully expected the high cost estimate (premium between $5-7k, a bit higher than I expected but ok I can deal with it for the first year), but man you should've seen the shock on my face when I heard I'd likely need 40+ hours of dual in the plane before I could even fly it solo... My plan is to buy a plane to fly a ton in the next year while knocking out IR, commercial, possibly CFI, etc. but that also fits my mission a year from now which the Comanche does nearly perfectly. But that 40 hour dual requirement before solo would be a real pain in the ass to coordinate and would interfere with my plans and timing.

So my questions... Is this really the reality in the current market? I know insurance costs/requirements have been going up and I understand the high cost but from people I've talked to and reading about others in a similar position I was expecting like 10-15 dual required then a certain amount of solo hours before passengers. 40 dual seems absurd to me. Has anyone else been in a similar situation recently (like this year) with low time and insured a retractable, HP plane? What was your experience and dual requirements/costs? Trying to figure out if I'll just have to deal with this or if it'll be possible to find insurance without that high of a dual requirement.
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T-Bird,

Essentially you’re asking to get insurance on a complex, high performance aircraft, of a type you have absolutely no experience in. It’s akin to a 16 year old driver who has been driving for 6 months asking an insurance Company to insure him for a McClaren.

Comanches are fast and can be a handful to get on the ground. Embrace the 40 hours. I don’t believe the insurance company cares if you’re receiving IR instruction at the same time. Multi-purpose The 40 hours and you can come out the other side a safer pilot, more insurable and well on your way to an instrument check ride!
 
I own a 2002 T182T that is insured for $350k. I tried to add a friend of mine who is a new pilot with 88 hours total time. We were denied by every insurer...they wouldn't even insure him with a big number of required dual hours. The insurance market has definitely tightened up, considering that I bought the plane in 2020 with 11 hours total time as a student pilot, and they insured me with the only requirement that I complete my private pilot before carrying passengers.
 
Did you call an insurance broker who obtains quotes from various insurance companies?

You can consider to start with something a bit more basic like a Cessna 172, will be cheaper insurance and easier to maintain. And swap to a HP/complex later on?
 
EdFred said:
Buy the plane, find a CFII that the insurance will insure in it, DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME AS AN INSURED, and get your IR and endorsements over the next 40-50 hours. Then when you add your name to the insurance you will have an IR and 50 hours time in type.

Where are you at?
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They don’t really allow this anymore. If the owner of the plane isn’t on there - they will specifically exclude you as the pilot from operating the controls of the plane. Which would defeat this purpose, prevent you from having coverage while in the plane and disclaim any claims as long as you are in the front seat. People used to do this in the old days but this method has long gone out the window.
 
Anthem said:
They don’t really allow this anymore. If the owner of the plane isn’t on there - they will specifically exclude you as the pilot from operating the controls of the plane. Which would defeat this purpose, prevent you from having coverage while in the plane and disclaim any claims as long as you are in the front seat. People used to do this in the old days but this method has long gone out the window.
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Odd because I checked on this not that long ago post 2020 and it was a thing. Especially since the owner wasnt even a pilot. (The owner is an LLC)
 
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EdFred said:
Odd because I checked on this not that long ago post 2020 and it was a thing. Especially since the owner wasnt even a pilot.
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Owner not being a pilot is fine. They’ll just exclude the owner from being at the controls. Same with owner being a pilot. Try adding a son/daughter on to your HP/complex plane hat insurance wouldn’t normally insure - they’ll send a rider that that person is specifically excluded from the controls and insurance isn’t valid when they are.

But this used to be common practice back in the day. But they don’t really allow this anymore.
 
100hrs TT with no complex or HP time? I wouldn’t be too shocked by this requirement with the way things are going. That’s a pretty big liability for an insurance company and I’d say 40hrs dual seems pretty reasonable. Lots of low timers wadding things up.

I’ll echo the others who suggest getting your IR with that time. I think you’ll be happy about it in the end.
 
Anthem said:
Owner not being a pilot is fine. They’ll just exclude the owner from being at the controls. Same with owner being a pilot. Try adding a son/daughter on to your HP/complex plane hat insurance wouldn’t normally insure - they’ll send a rider that that person is specifically excluded from the controls and insurance isn’t valid when they are.

But this used to be common practice back in the day. But they don’t really allow this anymore.
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Well in my experience they do, because under your premise I could never ever have another pilot sitting in the front seat with me because they might have touched the controls at some point.
 
M2C About a year ago I dig some digging on my ultimate plan of someday buying a plane. Called a few insurance guys. The story I got was that in the last several year retracts have become VERY expensive for them because for some reason they are paying out a lot more in gear up landings. Most common cause - pilot didn't pull the handle down.

So much so that a pilot over 70 cannot get new insurance for a retract. They'll continue to cover you if you had coverage prior to age 70 - but woe unto you if you need to get a new policy to any reason. You're uninsurable.

Doesn't of course concern the OP, but might give some more background to why it is so expensive and hard to get.
 
M2C - You have 100 hours. Don't buy yet. Rent and get your 50 X Country, then get your IR. You'll have a much clearer idea of what plane would fit you. Might still be the Comanche, but maybe not.
 
WDD said:
M2C About a year ago I dig some digging on my ultimate plan of someday buying a plane. Called a few insurance guys. The story I got was that in the last several year retracts have become VERY expensive for them because for some reason they are paying out a lot more in gear up landings. Most common cause - pilot didn't pull the handle down.

So much so that a pilot over 70 cannot get new insurance for a retract. They'll continue to cover you if you had coverage prior to age 70 - but woe unto you if you need to get a new policy to any reason. You're uninsurable.

Doesn't of course concern the OP, but might give some more background to why it is so expensive and hard to get.
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Causation/correlation. People have been gear upping with the same regularity. It's just that these museum pieces are now uneconomic to repair, sometimes at any price. So the house is pricing people out in reverse seniority (the senior first, as opposed to eat the young first, like traditional seniority decrees). People who bought in 1996 and grew up in the nostalgia of the 1960s GA ramps, will go to the grave thinking their retracts are just as supported as they were then. The insurance market is saying otherwise. Age is just the opener proxy, it won't be the final nail in the coffin.
 
EdFred said:
Well in my experience they do, because under your premise I could never ever have another pilot sitting in the front seat with me because they might have touched the controls at some point.
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You can. Just not the owner who doesn’t have insurance on his own plane (or is a pilot but not insurable in the plane )

Look - If this was the case - every low time pilot would just list the most experienced cfi they could find on the insurance policy to get the lowest rate. Ask your broker or other insurance broker - they will deny coverage if something happens and you happen to be the pilot manipulating the controls.
 
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I was speaking to a young man last night who showed up in a bellanca viking. He said he had about 200tt, no ifr, and nearly half that in the viking. He said only one company would write him, and they required 25tit before he could be pic. The previous owner flew around with him until he had the hours. I think he said that was about a 60k hull; didn't ask about the premium.

I agree with the advice to get your ifr done. Most people do the majority of their 40 hours with a cfii. Avemco lets you update your hours and get a new rate quarterly. Get your ifr knocked out and 50 hours in the plane and they'll probably knock 25% off that rate.
 
Also everyone is assuming you are getting a loan to purchase the airplane. If not, you can insure for liability only. But if you do this, and anything happens, you are stuck.

As I said, I would go ahead with the purchase. Bite the bullet on the first year insurance, and do the dual getting your Instrument Rating. And getting a lot of good experience in YOUR PLANE. :)
 
Appreciate everyone's input. This came from a broker, I'm trying Avemco and a few others now to see what else is out there, paying cash and going without insurance initially is another option but not sure I'm comfortable with that risk. Otherwise I'll bite the bullet with the 40 dual and just do the IR/commercial requirements in that time. Seems crazy how high the requirement is though especially given some others' experiences, 20-25 would be way more reasonable.
 
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