Insurance Question

DFH65

DFH65

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DFH65
So I haven't flown in a few years (20) and am interested in starting again. I have my PPL but am obviously not current. It probably will be awhile before I can get serious about it but I would like to take a few lessons here and there maybe every month or two just to get in the air and jog the muscle memory until I am in a position to do more.

So here is the question. If I am flying with a CFI and flying dual do I need renters insurance since I am not and can not be PIC without a medical and BFR.
 
DFH65 said:
So I haven't flown in a few years (20) and am interested in starting again. I have my PPL but am obviously not current. It probably will be awhile before I can get serious about it but I would like to take a few lessons here and there maybe every month or two just to get in the air and jog the muscle memory until I am in a position to do more.

So here is the question. If I am flying with a CFI and flying dual do I need renters insurance since I am not and can not be PIC without a medical and BFR.
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When a law suit is filed post accident, everyone remotely involved is named in the case. The FBO/CFI has no duty to pay your attorney fees.
 
DFH65 said:
If I am flying with a CFI and flying dual do I need renters insurance since I am not and can not be PIC without a medical and BFR.
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While it is theoretically possible you could be sued (in this country, almost anyone can be sued whether the plaintiff has any sort of case or not -- and you would have legal expenses even getting the case summarily dismissed), I've never heard of a case where a non-PIC-qualified trainee flying with a CFI who was legally acting as PIC in a plane not owned by the trainee got sued for a resulting accident.
 
One would think that a blanket personal liability policy would do.
 
Compared to what you're going to spend anyways per hour, renters isn't that expensive.

All of our students or renters have to buy the coverage before soloing our planes. AOPA and AVEMCO for a standard liability and 25k hull is around 2-300 bucks per year.
 
Ditto on get a non-owned policy. AOPA and Avemco are within dollars of each other. It costs less than the FBO's deductible you are liable for under most agreements.
 
Ron Levy said:
While it is theoretically possible you could be sued (in this country, almost anyone can be sued whether the plaintiff has any sort of case or not -- and you would have legal expenses even getting the case summarily dismissed), I've never heard of a case where a non-PIC-qualified trainee flying with a CFI who was legally acting as PIC in a plane not owned by the trainee got sued for a resulting accident.
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It didn't result in a suit, but I know a pilot who got a subrogation letter from the flight school's insurance company after a gear up during complex training.
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Compared to what you're going to spend anyways per hour, renters isn't that expensive.

All of our students or renters have to buy the coverage before soloing our planes. AOPA and AVEMCO for a standard liability and 25k hull is around 2-300 bucks per year.
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Why do they have to buy the coverage? The FBO is covered by their own insurance, so why would the FBO care?
 
I know about two years ago my FBO required anyone renting a plane to have renter's insurance. They started this after a plane was involved in two bird strikes. The first was a pure renting flight by a certificated pilot(do not remember what they had but they had at least a PPL ASEL, and if I remember correctly over 500 hours). He had renter's insurance. The second was during training for IR and the IR student was under the hood, and the instructor did not see the bird until it was too late. I believe the student did not have renter's insurance and it was quite a bit of money he was out in the end. This included anyone renting even for presolo flight training. I believe the only ones that did not were those patrons going on sightseeing flights and discovery flights. Of course neither of these flights ended up in a lawsuit, but the renter was responsible for the deductible which I believe was about $1000.

So at least at my FBO, I believe they would require you to have renter's insurance.
 
douglas393 said:
I know about two years ago my FBO required anyone renting a plane to have renter's insurance. They started this after a plane was involved in two bird strikes. The first was a pure renting flight by a certificated pilot(do not remember what they had but they had at least a PPL ASEL, and if I remember correctly over 500 hours). He had renter's insurance. The second was during training for IR and the IR student was under the hood, and the instructor did not see the bird until it was too late. I believe the student did not have renter's insurance and it was quite a bit of money he was out in the end. This included anyone renting even for presolo flight training. I believe the only ones that did not were those patrons going on sightseeing flights and discovery flights. Of course neither of these flights ended up in a lawsuit, but the renter was responsible for the deductible which I believe was about $1000.

So at least at my FBO, I believe they would require you to have renter's insurance.
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If your only exposure is the deductable, you'd probably do better to self-insure and pass the cost on as part of the rental fee.
 
dans2992 said:
Why do they have to buy the coverage? The FBO is covered by their own insurance, so why would the FBO care?
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Good question;

Note that, at the outset, the coverage carried by the FBO will usually cover the FBO and the Owner of the aircraft (if they are not the same), but will NOT cover the renter. Hence, after insurance pays off to cover damages incurred, the carrier may opt to subrogate back against the renter to recover its losses.

Perhaps the FBO is trying to (1) avoid renters having major butt-hurt if subrogation occurs ("...you didn't tell me..." etc.); and (2) avoid having to chase the renter for a deductible, when renter's insurance would have covered it.
 
Old Geek said:
If your only exposure is the deductable, you'd probably do better to self-insure and pass the cost on as part of the rental fee.
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I believe there is more exposure than just the deductible. In these two incidents the word on the tarmac was they were responsible for only the deductible, but then again it was only a bird strike, and other than the leading edge of the wing there was no damage, and the planes were flyable with the damage, and so loss in income either, except for the few days they were being repaired.

In any case, it is an FBO requirement, not mine, and so I guess if you do not like the policy(which I know they enforce without exception) you can choose to rent elsewhere. For me it I does not matter, as I own my bird and no longer rent.
 
dans2992 said:
Why do they have to buy the coverage? The FBO is covered by their own insurance, so why would the FBO care?
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Not all schools work the same way.

Ours is almost more of a club.

There is no blanket "fbo policy" on the planes. After doing the math, with how many hours are flown and how much the policy would have increased the rental rate, with the average PPL taking 60hrs, it's cheaper for our students to just pull their own policy then pay for a rental rate with the passed down hourly amount from standard flight school policy.
 
So your club has _no_ insurance? Sounds strange....
 
dans2992 said:
So your club has _no_ insurance? Sounds strange....
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We like being the odd ball, were well in the green and our planes are paid off, everything is insured with the students and we rent for just over 63hr dry

And we DO have insurance via renters. It's great for them and us, keeps things clean, the students pay less in the end, saves the school money and saves the students money too.

Also it's THIER coverage and will go where ever they go
 
midlifeflyer said:
It didn't result in a suit, but I know a pilot who got a subrogation letter from the flight school's insurance company after a gear up during complex training.
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With the school's CFI acting as PIC? YGBSM. Or was the instructor not a school employee, perhaps provided by the student? In any event, I hope the pilot then filed suit against the CFI for anything s/he had to pay to the school's insurance company as well as costs -- that would be a pretty open-and-shut case.
 
dans2992 said:
So your club has _no_ insurance? Sounds strange....
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I have found this to be oddly and surprisingly typical. Require your renters to carry x hull insurance that changes based on the model and add the club as named insured. No need to carry hull insurance as the owner of the club or aircraft. Just carry comprehensive coverage for damage on the ground (ex due to weather).
 
dans2992 said:
Why do they have to buy the coverage? The FBO is covered by their own insurance, so why would the FBO care?
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Uninsured losses, starting with deductibles and going onward to reduced aircraft value and loss of use of the aircraft during repairs.
 
Old Geek said:
If your only exposure is the deductable, you'd probably do better to self-insure and pass the cost on as part of the rental fee.
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FBO's are generally trying to pare the rental fee to the bone for competitive and marketing reasons, so this is not an option popular with FBO owners/managers.
 
ChrisK said:
I have found this to be oddly and surprisingly typical. Require your renters to carry x hull insurance that changes based on the model and add the club as named insured. No need to carry hull insurance as the owner of the club or aircraft. Just carry comprehensive coverage for damage on the ground (ex due to weather).
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Never heard of that being competitively viable.
 
ChrisK said:
It certainly isn't water tight. I have heard of the same clubs going after their students for lose of revenue etc.
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Clubs suing their members? YGBSM again. I can't imagine anyone joining a club with that history.
 
Ron Levy said:
Never heard of that being competitively viable.
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Well for our competition it's not. We rent for significantly less and have considerably better profit, we also attract more experienced CFIs, so over all it works really well for us.

We have never had a student turn away because of our renters insurance requirement, we've even been complemented on it a couple times :)

As a renter/student you ARE PAYING for insurance, ether in your hourly rate or with your own renters policy, at least the renter policy will go with you.
 
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Ron Levy said:
Clubs suing their members? YGBSM again. I can't imagine anyone joining a club with that history.
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Not suing. Asking for money and denying renewal if not paid. It only happened once as I recall.
 
Ron Levy said:
Clubs suing their members? YGBSM again. I can't imagine anyone joining a club with that history.
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And yet year after year, students pay up front for years of flight training and then find the bankruptcy sign on the door of some fly by night ab initio school.

If the turnover is high enough, the reputation will be forgotten fairly quickly or unknown to noobs.
 
Ron Levy said:
With the school's CFI acting as PIC? YGBSM. Or was the instructor not a school employee, perhaps provided by the student?
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Yes, the school's CFI was acting as PIC and provided the CFI.

In any event, I hope the pilot then filed suit against the CFI for anything s/he had to pay to the school's insurance company as well as costs -- that would be a pretty open-and-shut case.
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Wow, and they say lawyers are sue-happy!

Here's what actually happened:

The student owned a 152 so when he got the subrogation letter he contacted his insurer. Ended up speaking with three different people, each of which told him he wasn't covered for it, each for a different reason, all of which were wrong (Lesson: do not ask insurance sales people what your policy means! Coverage issues need to go to the claims people. The subrogation letter itself, not a conversation about it).

He called AOPA Legal who referred him to me. I sent the subrogation letter to the claims department of my client's insurer. A claim rep was assigned and we had a very pleasant conversation which started with (paraphrasing, but close) "What is this BS?" and ended with his, "I'll take care of it and let you know."

About a week later I received a copy of "our" insurer's letter to FBO's insurer. A very pleasant "pound sand!" letter as I recall.

End of story.
 
midlifeflyer said:
... do not ask insurance sales people what your policy means! Coverage issues need to go to the claims people. The subrogation letter itself, not a conversation about it).
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Or more folks need to record the phone calls and send them to the insurance regulators. I'm tired of telephone answerers being clueless. Either you know your business or you don't.

And the old "get it in writing" means little anymore since the writing is all in legal mumbo-jumbo.
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Also it's THIER coverage and will go where ever they go
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This is a good thing, and I like your school's policy. If I had it my way, I would set our club up like that. Require everyone buy renters insurance and pass the savings on to the pilots via lower rental rates.

Right now our club has a good insurance policy - which negates the need for renters insurance. However there are a lot of pilots who fly/rent outside the club as well, and would rather not be paying twice for insurance.

Also, I kinda feel like we are supporting the guys who fly 30 hours per year and run planes off the runway, PIO prop-strikes, etc...
 
Old Geek said:
If your only exposure is the deductable, you'd probably do better to self-insure and pass the cost on as part of the rental fee.
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Some schools have higher deductibles, $5,000, so it depends on what you can self insure for.
 
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