Insurance question (I must be nuts)

[lawingr]

It appears that I may have the opportuntiy to join in a partnership (4 people) on a Comanche 250 sometime in the next 6 months. I doubt I will do it, but I thought I would look into it anyway. I currently only have 72 hours, and given that I will be studying for the bar exam while working for the next 3 months, I probably will only tack on another 10 hours or so by the end of July (Oshkosh here I come).

With that said, I have 2 questions for budgeting purposes:
(1) Do you think I can get insured on it with no retract or HP time, and if so, how many hours dual do you think the insurance company will require? Also, approximately how much a year will the insurance run (guesstimate, both at the beginning and after I have 50-100 hours in type)?

(2) To all you Comanche owners, what does an "average" annual run on this beautiful machine?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Mike

 

[Ghery]

Our club has an Arrow. For those with no previous retract time, the insurance company requires the following before solo:

1. 100 hours TT
2. 10 hours dual in make and model
3. PP (minimum)

In addition, they require that we log at least 3 hours in a 180 day period in an Arrow or we have to get signed off by a CFI again. And that signoff can be no more than 45 days old the next time we fly the Arrow. I've got a counter on my Excel spreadsheet for my log that tells me how old my Arrow time is. It got to about 165 days, so I went and flew it for 3 hours in February for the sole purpose of resetting that clock.

Oh, and by pure coincidence, I hit 100 hour TT and 10 hours dual in the Arrow at the same time. Didn't plan it that way, but that's how it worked out.

Many FBOs will require an instrument rating before they'll rent you a complex, so our club is really great in that respect.

 

[poadeleted20]

There's a big difference to insurers between an Arrow and a high performance complex aircraft. If you have an instrument rating, you can certainly get insurance for yourself in a 250 Comanche, but it will be expensive (I'd guess at least $5K for the first year, and perhaps as much as $10K), and will require a lot more than 10 hours with an instructor before you can fly it solo (more like 25 for solo), and more until you can carry passengers (I'd guess another 10-25 solo). If you do not have an IR (and with 72 hours total time, you probably don't), it is unlikely you can get insurance in a 250 Comanche at any price. When you get your IR and 200TT, the prospects will be very much brighter. However, the only way to find out for sure is to contact a good broker and have the broker check the various underwriters to see what you can get (or not get). The broker I recommend is Norris Hibbler at Aircraft & Marine:

Phone: 800-466-4944
Fax: 360-694-8249
E-mail: mail@aircraftandmarine.com
Address:
2306 E. Evergreen Suite 1
Vancouver, WA 98661

 

[RotaryWingBob]

It appears that I may have the opportuntiy to join in a partnership (4 people) on a Comanche 250 sometime in the next 6 months. I doubt I will do it, but I thought I would look into it anyway. I currently only have 72 hours, and given that I will be studying for the bar exam while working for the next 3 months, I probably will only tack on another 10 hours or so by the end of July (Oshkosh here I come).

With that said, I have 2 questions for budgeting purposes:
(1) Do you think I can get insured on it with no retract or HP time, and if so, how many hours dual do you think the insurance company will require? Also, approximately how much a year will the insurance run (guesstimate, both at the beginning and after I have 50-100 hours in type)?

(2) To all you Comanche owners, what does an "average" annual run on this beautiful machine?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Mike

Call AOPA insurance or another broker.

 

[Baron 55]

Are you getting individual insurance on a partnership plane? I haven't seen it done this way. However, being no insurance expert, maybe it isdone like that sometimes?? In the two partnerships I've been in, all partners were listed on one policy. The rates/limitations/pilot requirements are, naturally, based on the least experienced pilot among the others. On a Comanche, you are going to be a problem at your present experience level. You will need to find out what the insurer thinks, and if it's a partnership policy, then you'll need to work it out with your partners...if you are splitting the policy cost equally, they will pay more because of you. If you decide to break it up unequally, you'll have to hash out how to do that, percentage-wise. At present, I would predict you won't be able to fly the plane solo. It still might be something to consider; my current partnership had one fellow who could not fly our plane by himself, one of us others had to be with him and acting PIC. He didn't care at first, but he left the group after a while.

 

[Steve]

I have a lot of HP/complex time, but my wife doesn't. When we were shopping for a plane before the IAR the quotes ran around $2600/yr for a Comanche 260 or C210 because she would be a named insured. And they wanted 5 hrs in type dual before solo. I only needed a CFI checkout/signoff in the plane. Don't know how a 4 way partnership would split, but I suspect the low timer would set the premium.

 

[lawingr]

Thank you all for your input. Based on you input, and that of others, along with some research I've been doing, the Comanche is out of the question (at least for a few years). Going to try and get into a more "basic" plane in the next couple of years (Cherokee 180, 172, Sundowner, etc.). Build up some time, probably get my IR, and get some complex time in the FBO's Mooney . . . then, maybe I'll be able to move up to a Comanche (I just love those planes!)

 

[poadeleted20]

I have a lot of HP/complex time, but my wife doesn't.

When Fran and I first shopped insurance, we learned that the insurers give a break to husband-and-wife teams when one is low-time compared to the other. Their thinking is that the lower time spouse will be under fairly direct supervision of the higher time spouse. They do not give the same deal to non-related partnerships,