Gear up insurance.

luvflyin

luvflyin

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I'm wondering what the ratio is for unintended gear up landings to intended. Will insurance companies write unintended not covered and what would the premium difference likely be?
 
I don't know why people think landing gear is such a big deal


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Gear won't come down or you did it for a valid reason. As opossed to a rectal cranial inversion and you just forgot to put it down.
 
luvflyin said:
I'm wondering what the ratio is for unintended gear up landings to intended. Will insurance companies write unintended not covered and what would the premium difference likely be?
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An owner policy is based on pilot time and the make/model. If you insure a retract, gear up accidents are included just like any other accident.
 
Clip4 said:
An owner policy is based on pilot time and the make/model. If you insure a retract, gear up accidents are included just like any other accident.
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Yeah. I was wondering if they would write an exclusion if you wanted it to lower the premium
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah. I was wondering if they would write an exclusion if you wanted it to lower the premium
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The old saying is those that have and those who will. One would be foolish to solicit this exclusion and insurance on complex airplanes is not much more.
 
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Intentionally?
Isn't that like burning your failing business to the ground; ie insurance fraud & hard time?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Intentionally?
Isn't that like burning your failing business to the ground; ie insurance fraud & hard time?
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I mean, there's no need to get indignant. I'm not condoning it, but such a circumstance is hard to prove in the first place. Many have accused henning of doing that very thing. Took a 709 ride and got a check for an airplane many thought he'd have a tough time selling for what he got out of the insurance. Personally, I think he truly had a brain fart, but if he didn't, nobody was able to prove it, so the point stands.

--brk brk--

As to the OPs question, it's an inconsequential difference. My insurance policy on the Arrow is around the same rate as my insurance on the WarriorII I used to own more than 5 years ago, with a +15K insured hull difference on the Arrow on top of it mind you. Granted, I'm a professional pilot so I exceed the trigger the insurance uses for low-time pilots, which does make a significant difference in the premium for the first year. Most folks see that premium disappear within 100 hours of retract time.

Much a big deal is made about retractable gear. It just isn't a big issue in my experience. For me, financing costs for a six figure airplane is orders of magnitude a limiting factor to my participation in this avocation, than insurance or mx complications supposedly arising from retract gear ownership. To each their own.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I mean, there's no need to get indignant. I'm not condoning it, but such a circumstance is hard to prove in the first place. Many have accused henning of doing that very thing. Took a 709 ride and got a check for an airplane many thought he'd have a tough time selling for what he got out of the insurance. Personally, I think he truly had a brain fart, but if he didn't, nobody was able to prove it, so the point stands.

--brk brk--

As to the OPs question, it's an inconsequential difference. My insurance policy on the Arrow is around the same rate as my insurance on the WarriorII I used to own more than 5 years ago, with a +15K insured hull difference on the Arrow on top of it mind you. Granted, I'm a professional pilot so I exceed the trigger the insurance uses for low-time pilots, which does make a significant difference in the premium for the first year. Most folks see that premium disappear within 100 hours of retract time.

Much a big deal is made about retractable gear. It just isn't a big issue in my experience. For me, financing costs for a six figure airplane is orders of magnitude a limiting factor to my participation in this avocation, than insurance or mx complications supposedly arising from retract gear ownership. To each their own.
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Makes sense. I was thinking that if "brain fart" gear ups really outnumbered intentional ones, then there might be a significant reduction in premium because the insurance companies exposure would be a lot less. The more I think about it, there probably aren't enough of them to make much difference.
 
I have found nothing to indicate that an intentional gearup with the intent to make a claim is anything but insurance fraud; a felony. Lawyers?
I would have trouble glossing this over as a minor issue.

Typical Elements for Fraud
In any insurance fraud case, there are certain elements that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order for criminal penalties to apply. While each state may have additional elements for certain specific types of insurance fraud, the core elements often include:
  1. Knowingly making a false or misleading statement;
  2. The statement is made in connection with a claim or payment; and
  3. The statement is material (in other words, the statement can impact the outcome of the claim).
http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/insurance-fraud.html
 
MAKG1 said:
When the gear won't go down, you land gear up intentionally. Some people will do it for an off field landing to avoid flipping over.

And of course every seaplane does. :)
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That's not intentional. That would be like saying that due to an engine failure a pilot intentionally landed off airport, or intentionally crashed into a school, etc. Look up the definition of intentional.
 
Lachlan said:
That's not intentional. That would be like saying that due to an engine failure a pilot intentionally landed off airport, or intentionally crashed into a school, etc. Look up the definition of intentional.
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If you make a decision to do it, it's intentional. Yes, intentional off airport landings with an engine failure do happen. It sure beats a stall-spin or a crash into a mountainside.

I think you're confusing it with planning. No one plans a gear up. Plenty of people land them that way under control and with intent, because it's the best option under the circumstances.
 
MAKG1 said:
If you make a decision to do it, it's intentional. Yes, intentional off airport landings with an engine failure do happen. It sure beats a stall-spin or a crash into a mountainside.

I think you're confusing it with planning. No one plans a gear up. Plenty of people land them that way under control and with intent, because it's the best option under the circumstances.
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No. Intentional means deliberate, on purpose, willful, voluntary. It doesnt have anything to do with unplanned or unforeseen consequences or situations. You intentionally punch a guy in the face in a boxing match; it means premeditated, planned ahead of time. Your lunacy equates to saying that the people who drowned when the Titanic sunk was due to their intentional efforts to swim in frigid ocean water.
 
JOhnH said:
Henning?;)
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I don't think he is here to defend himself. Many may not like his personality, but the weather was bad at the time of his landing and I give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't cycle the gear due to TB/rain/etc. Kind of brutal in these forums if one has an incident, with all these 10 hour a year Chuck Yeager pilots Monday morning QBing the incident and how well they would've handled it.

I had an incident a couple of years ago at night. Alternator blew apart in flight, battery exploded about the same time, alternator twisted 45* and belt was turning on a non-moving pulley which put a lot of smoke in the cockpit pretty quickly. I landed without incident, but thought afterwards if I totally bought the farm how many on these forums would be 2nd guessing an idiot stall accident at night - I doubt the alternator-battery-pulley items would've been NTSB detected if the plane was augered. Only tense moment was getting the hand held to activate the runway lights - hand helds are weak, as are flashlights in smoke ... best light was the Iphone light.
 
danhagan said:
I don't think he is here to defend himself. Many may not like his personality, but . . .
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. . . But, I'm not one of those people. I considered Henning a personal friend. My wife and I met with him a couple of times and he taught us a lot about airplanes, even if I did disagree with his politics. I often found his attitude refreshing. The "Henning" personality he cultivated on line was not exactly the one he displayed in real life.
 
There are three ways to pay more for aviation insurance. 1. be low time and lack an instrument rating 2. have retractable gear 3. have an experimental
 
Lachlan said:
No. Intentional means deliberate, on purpose, willful, voluntary. It doesnt have anything to do with unplanned or unforeseen consequences or situations. You intentionally punch a guy in the face in a boxing match; it means premeditated, planned ahead of time. Your lunacy equates to saying that the people who drowned when the Titanic sunk was due to their intentional efforts to swim in frigid ocean water.
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DAMN, that's the worst straw man I've heard in a long time.

Flying your airplane into the ground when the gear won't go down is very much deliberate, on purpose, willful and voluntary. The alternative is to let the plane do it for you, and most of us would CHOOSE (note the important word there) to do it under control.

There is no requirement for premeditation. That's like saying shooting someone on a whim isn't intentional. I think perhaps everyone else on the planet would disagree there.
 
citizen5000 said:
There are three ways to pay more for aviation insurance. 1. be low time and lack an instrument rating 2. have retractable gear 3. have an experimental
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There are two others that come to mind. 1) Low time taildragger, and 2) multi engine taildragger
 
It's pretty silly to seek an exclusionary clause like that, and I doubt they'd go for it.

I personally wouldn't own a retract without hull insurance. You just don't know when the gear will fail to come down for one reason or another, or you'll screw up and land gear up.
 
bluerooster said:
There are two others that come to mind. 1) Low time taildragger, and 2) multi engine taildragger
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Or fly a type with a poor safety record. There are lots more ways...


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MAKG1 said:
When the gear won't go down, you land gear up intentionally. Some people will do it for an off field landing to avoid flipping over.

And of course every seaplane does. :)
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"When the gear won't go down," not "When the pilot intentionally does not lower the gear," says all you need to know to differentiate intentional vs circumstantial. If the gear won't go down do you really think anyone is going to refuse to land and just fly around for years on end? No one has ever gotten stuck up there. No one with 1/2 a brain lands gear up under nirmsl operations. Emergencies, sure. When the gear malfunctions you still must land at some point. You didn't take off intending for it to be inop and be forced to perform a gear-up landing.

Sea planes on straight floats do not land gear up. They land on their pontoons. Say "Amphibious sea planes" and you have a point. Otherwise, you're intentionally being obtuse.

Having a gun in your hand and then using it is a little different than having an aircraft component fail in flight, Mr. Hayseed. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
It's pretty silly to seek an exclusionary clause like that, and I doubt they'd go for it.

I personally wouldn't own a retract without hull insurance. You just don't know when the gear will fail to come down for one reason or another, or you'll screw up and land gear up.
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Yeah. The exclusion I was wondering about would be just for the "you forgot to put the wheels down" ones. I'd consider rolling the dice on that if the premium reduction was significant. I'd want to be covered for mechanical failure incidents, including ones where the failure was something other than the gear but I intentionally didn't put them down because it was the safest way to make an off airport landing.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah. The exclusion I was wondering about would be just for the "you forgot to put the wheels down" ones. I'd consider rolling the dice on that if the premium reduction was significant. I'd want to be covered for mechanical failure incidents, including ones where the failure was something other than the gear but I intentionally didn't put them down because it was the safest way to make an off airport landing.
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The problem then becomes proving one way or the other. It just doesn't make sense for them to do.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I have found nothing to indicate that an intentional gearup with the intent to make a claim is anything but insurance fraud; a felony. Lawyers?
I would have trouble glossing this over as a minor issue.

Typical Elements for Fraud
In any insurance fraud case, there are certain elements that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order for criminal penalties to apply. While each state may have additional elements for certain specific types of insurance fraud, the core elements often include:
  1. Knowingly making a false or misleading statement;
  2. The statement is made in connection with a claim or payment; and
  3. The statement is material (in other words, the statement can impact the outcome of the claim).
http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/insurance-fraud.html
Click to expand...
The issue is how do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the pilot thought to himself, "I'm going to collect the insurance on this," and didn't just brainfart? Having a strong suspicion isn't sufficient. Absent a confession I don't think you're going to get there. Same thing could happen with car insurance; you could "accidentally" rear end somebody and total the car you were trying to sell. I think the actuarial tables just lump all those together into one risk.
 
And if you had the exclusion the OP describes, you could "forget" to check the breaker, the emergency extension could be "stuck," or you could just panic when you don't get three greens. It would be very difficult to prove the difference between covered and not covered. "I don't know why the grear work now, I swear nothing worked in the air. Maybe the hard landing knocked something loose."
 
Bobanna said:
So, if you're one who simply "forgot" to lower the gear, do you move the switch down as the airplane skids to a halt on its belly? Be honest.
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Switch? I ain't got no switch. I have a big hydraulic handle and once the engine stops turning and there's no hydraulic pressure, I don't think I could move it (I guess I could work the wobble pump at the same time).
 
Bobanna said:
So, if you're one who simply "forgot" to lower the gear, do you move the switch down as the airplane skids to a halt on its belly? Be honest.
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My gear are always down, so it's not an issue, but I'm sure you could make it look like whatever you want to.

"I tried it down and up and multiple times, but it did nothing. Then when I committed to the gear-up landing, I left it up because I didn't want it to decide to come down at the worst possible time."
 
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