Insurance company reviews

Will Kumley

Will Kumley

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Aug 6, 2019
Messages
796
Location
Pacific Northwest
Display Name
Will
Not that I ever want to use the insurance I pay for, but I'm curious if others can tell me goods and bads of their experience with various insurance companies or brokers.
Background: We've used Ladd Gardner since we got our Colt 3 years ago and the only hiccup we've had was in getting them to acknowledge that we moved from California to Washington. This year when they updated our quote there was no initial ask for updated times and the price increased. I checked to see if updating my times would change the premium and it lowered it by about $100 per year.
While waiting on that updated quote, I also emailed about half a dozen companies/brokers to get insurance quotes from them. AOPA hit me with a significantly higher premium so I immediately discarded it. Most companies just flat out never responded. Then out of the blue, today I got a quote from Assured Partners with a quote roughly $100 less than the updated quote from Ladd Gardner.

Does anyone have good or otherwise info on these companies?
 
I recently had a rather strange quote. A company quoted a 6 month policy that was $800 a year less than my previous premium with a different company for the same coverage.
 
Get a good broker.
One that does all the insurance company shopping and is transparent with their research results.
Get Wings Insurance; Tom Hauge & staff - Minnesota.
My days of shopping are over.
 
Will Kumley said:
Not that I ever want to use the insurance I pay for, but I'm curious if others can tell me goods and bads of their experience with various insurance companies or brokers.
Background: We've used Ladd Gardner since we got our Colt 3 years ago and the only hiccup we've had was in getting them to acknowledge that we moved from California to Washington. This year when they updated our quote there was no initial ask for updated times and the price increased. I checked to see if updating my times would change the premium and it lowered it by about $100 per year.
While waiting on that updated quote, I also emailed about half a dozen companies/brokers to get insurance quotes from them. AOPA hit me with a significantly higher premium so I immediately discarded it. Most companies just flat out never responded. Then out of the blue, today I got a quote from Assured Partners with a quote roughly $100 less than the updated quote from Ladd Gardner.

Does anyone have good or otherwise info on these companies?
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I use Assured Partners for my current plane , and did for my first plane. They have been decent to deal with. I used them based on the advice of the broker that helped with the purchase of my first. I was a student pilot purchasing a later model 182 and they worked the quotes well. I will likely test the waters with my renewal on my T210 as the market is getting softer and, with 130hrs in M/M and 450 total, my current contract through AP is just over $9,000 per year; I think it could have been cheaper. I see many recommendations for Tom Hague, with Wings aviation insurance, on other forums that I frequent so I will check with him for the next cycle.
 
Been using Travers for 20+ years. No claims. Mostly with policies from Global, but a couple exception years with another underwriter. Very happy with their service.
 
The quotes are always the same, by design. A broker who answers promptly, quotes fast, communicates, and will walk you through the claims process is what you need to suss out. They ALL cash the checks swiftly.

For me it's a rotating cast. My current broker has been sucky lately so I threw a quote at Travers. After multiple pokes, it's nearly 2 weeks now, no quote, no comms unless I hassle them -- a real high friction and disappointing experience so far. I feel like there is a limited talent pool in this space, and a lot of clowns. And they all rotate periodically.
 
schmookeeg said:
The quotes are always the same, by design. A broker who answers promptly, quotes fast, communicates, and will walk you through the claims process is what you need to suss out. They ALL cash the checks swiftly.

For me it's a rotating cast. My current broker has been sucky lately so I threw a quote at Travers. After multiple pokes, it's nearly 2 weeks now, no quote, no comms unless I hassle them -- a real high friction and disappointing experience so far. I feel like there is a limited talent pool in this space, and a lot of clowns. And they all rotate periodically.
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Yep been with BWI for years. Started to really crap out on the quality so I switched.
Let'sgoflying! said:
Get Wings Insurance; Tom Hauge & staff - Minnesota.
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Hope you don't ever have to use them for a claim. I was pretty blatantly lied to. I would never use them again and regret doing so in the first place.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Hope you don't ever have to use them for a claim. I was pretty blatantly lied to. I would never use them again and regret doing so in the first place.
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Interesting. I've only seen glowing reports. I would like to know more about your experience if you would care to DM offline.
 
Avemco is very good to deal with (both up front and for claims), they insure most anything, but they're the most expensive.

I was using Falcon until they couldn't come up with coverage for my Parrakeet. At that point I went to Northwest, who was able to get me coverage. No claims yet (hopefully never).
 
robin ardoin said:
Interesting. I've only seen glowing reports. I would like to know more about your experience if you would care to DM offline.
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I can add a dull report. I never had them run a claim, but we were insured with them for a year or two and had a bad comms incident at renewal, with follow-on excuse train about someone was sick or a dog ate my pilot form or some low-class junk that caused me to switch. I wasn't mad at them, I just expect different things from the brokers skivving 15% off of me. I received the "5%" treatment and wasn't pleased.

Current broker is giving around 8% treatment, so I'm sniffing around, but haven't switched yet. When you've had a good broker, you really resent the poseurs.
 
Dana said:
Avemco is very good to deal with (both up front and for claims), they insure most anything, but they're the most expensive.

I was using Falcon until they couldn't come up with coverage for my Parrakeet. At that point I went to Northwest, who was able to get me coverage. No claims yet (hopefully never).
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They are indeed both a delight to deal with and slightly more expensive, yet I've insured with them for many years. Why? When I had an accident, they got an adjuster on site within 24 hours and the check for the correct amount was in my hand less than 3 days after. As far as I'm concerned, that kind of 'behavior' is worth the additional $150/$200 a year delta.
 
I just renewed policies on 2 aircraft. I use Gallagher as my broker. As part of checking around before renewal I called around and figured out that all these people use brokers. When you call up asking for a quote they can’t see much because you are attached to your previous broker.
 
Alien Mind said:
They are indeed both a delight to deal with and slightly more expensive, yet I've insured with them for many years. Why? When I had an accident, they got an adjuster on site within 24 hours and the check for the correct amount was in my hand less than 3 days after. As far as I'm concerned, that kind of 'behavior' is worth the additional $150/$200 a year delta.
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I agree, but in my case the price difference was considerably more, like 50% more.
 
I got a c172 with a car engine and pay less than most I know with stock c172. my agent is Chris at air insurance resources
 
I use Acrisure as my broker. They got me a policy with Old Republic. I had a prop strike claim, and had excellent service during my claim from both Acrisure and Old Republic.
 
My understanding of things is this:
Everyone (the folks that sell us the insurance) use and shop around the same 20 or so actual insurance companies. I use BWI for this.
One company is not in that pool of twenty and you can deal directly with them. I think this is Avemco. They are the insurance company.
 
My insurance broker (BWI) recently let me know that a lot of new companies are entering this market. The underwriters haven't changed, but the addition of new brokers means they will likely cut their prices to get more market share. That should mean lower rates across the board if the beliefs about competition hold.
 
While they excel at most things, USAA is a lousy aviation broker. They sold out to USAIG a while back and while that was fine when USAIG would write all the policies, they decided that there were some airplanes (notably Navions) that they wouldn't insure anymore. USAA did a half-hearted attempt at finding other coverage for me, but I ended up having to punt them.
 
Dana said:
Avemco is very good to deal with (both up front and for claims), they insure most anything, but they're the most expensive.
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Yeah, I've been with Avemco since we bought the Mooney.

We were with a local broker when our Wheeler Express was destroyed by a tornado in 2020 while inside its hangar. About 6 months later when we asked for a quote for the Mooney from all the non-Avemco underwriters, we were given the "FO" quotes (e.g. >$5k/year). One broker even said, "You just need to go with Avemco for now. Call us back in a few years." I appreciated his honesty.
 
Currently there are 27 companies (carriers) that provide aircraft insurance in the US. Each company has their own appetite so typically, not all companies will quote a given risk. Some companies write broad ranges of aircraft/risk types and some have very narrow appetites. Depending on the type of risk and companies quoting, the broker can have a very big or very small impact on rates. Some insurance carriers are highly automated so the pricing is 100% dependent on the data entered into the computer. Barring a data entry error, the premium will be what it is every time. For some companies, underwriting is a very manual process performed by actual humans (who are often aviators and experienced underwriters) and they will carefully consider all of the details of the risk. This is where broker choice can make the difference. Some brokers submit standard quote requests with standardized, bare-bones information. Other brokers will provide the "story" and additional color commentary on the risk which can give an underwriter more confidence in the risk and in some cases allow for more premium discounts or even flip a risk from a declination to a quote. There's no one-size-fits-all solution as one person can get great results with a high-volume/low-touch agent because their risk isn't complex or non-standard, where another person has trouble because the broker didn't give their complex, non-standard risk the white-glove treatment.

The other thing you need to consider is what you need/want from your insurance company. Are you seeking only lowest price or are you needing quality of service (both in underwriting and claims), are you needing flexible underwriting? Sometimes (not always) low price results in less flexibility. Also, aviation insurance polices are not identical. A good broker knows their carriers, knows their policy forms, understand their pilot requirements and can help you compare not just price but differences in coverage.
 
There are 3 layers to the process: brokers, underwriters, and reinsurers. Each takes a cut.

If aircraft insurance is going up across the board, blame it on a bank in Germany or London that nobody has heard of.
 
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