You know, considering all the military pilots out there, you would think that USAA would be on top of that.
Liability
- Thread starter txflyer
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He said his friend was recently sued. I suspect it is not over yet, and won't be for a while.
I have a case right now that if you guys knew the facts, I am pretty sure you would all lose your mind that they filed suit. After its all over, I'll let you know the facts. But it just goes to show that anyone can sue anyone for anything as long as they have $150 for the filing fee. Don't lose too much sleep about it is the best advice I can give. Just try do the right thing and don't do anything reckless or stupid. So make sure you have a reasonable policy in place. Of course, a huge benefit of that is the legal defense that the carrier will provide.
As others have said, the plaintiff's lawyers generally just want the insurance proceeds. I do have one right now where that does not seem to be the true, but it is extremely unusual. Frankly, I believe at the end of the day they will take what's left of the policy. Once they start looking at what their real damages are, the costs to pursue recovery, and the difficulty of collecting beyond the insurance limits, I think they will ultimately fall in line. Plaintiffs generally cannot collect on a judgment against jointly owned property. So if husband and wife own a house together, you can't attach the house to satisfy a judgment against just the husband. Of course, this is all state law specific, and thus your state law may not be the same.
Geico266
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I've been sued and I've sued people. It is hard, but the emotional strain can be taxing. Best not to think about it until you have to. 
As a side note I have been in small claims court at least 300 times for tenant / landlord stuff. Never lost a case, even when the defendant kicked it up to county court. I love going to court and collecting on judgments. Cars, boats, motorcycles, furniture, wage and bank account garnishments, real estate. I learned how to collect from the best.. 
As a side note I have been in small claims court at least 300 times for tenant / landlord stuff. Never lost a case, even when the defendant kicked it up to county court. I love going to court and collecting on judgments. Cars, boats, motorcycles, furniture, wage and bank account garnishments, real estate. I learned how to collect from the best.
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jonnyjetprop
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Who owns you car?Inspired by Unit74's thread where he woke up a new customer to flying, I want to take people flying and try to turn them on, but I'm scared ****less of it.
I did not come all this way to be sued back into the stone age.
More than one attorney has said to me that basically they can wipe their backside with any release form. Especially a minor. That's about what liability release forms are worth. How do you mitigate this liability? You don't? You can't? You can somehow? Maybe LLC owns the plane? School me.
Thanks in advance ...
What kind of release do you require before anyone gets into the car?
What about nearby pedestrians?
I carry aviation liability insurance and don't worry about it.
The way I see it for me to suffer substantial loss the following has to happen
I have to have an accident where someone is injured
That accident has to be at least arguably partially my fault
Injured party has to decide to sue
The suing party has to beat the insurance company's lawyers
The judge has to award more damages than the insurance policy pays for.
Just doesn't seem that likely to happen.
Also, side rant... how in the world does one call a pilot owner flying their own aircraft negligent. Don't I have just as much skin in the safe outcome of the flight as the passenger? In fact don't I have more seeing as how I also have financial stake in the aircraft it's self and a desire to retain my flying privileges? I can see insurance making a payout for medical expenses but beyond that seems ridiculous.
The way I see it for me to suffer substantial loss the following has to happen
I have to have an accident where someone is injured
That accident has to be at least arguably partially my fault
Injured party has to decide to sue
The suing party has to beat the insurance company's lawyers
The judge has to award more damages than the insurance policy pays for.
Just doesn't seem that likely to happen.
Also, side rant... how in the world does one call a pilot owner flying their own aircraft negligent. Don't I have just as much skin in the safe outcome of the flight as the passenger? In fact don't I have more seeing as how I also have financial stake in the aircraft it's self and a desire to retain my flying privileges? I can see insurance making a payout for medical expenses but beyond that seems ridiculous.
Turningfinal
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I can think of a million reasons how a pilot-owner could be negligent.
Flying without a current flight review?
Flying pax without 90 day currency?
Flying without a medical?
VFR only pilot into marginal weather?
Flying an un-airworthy aircraft?
That's just a few I can think of in the 10 seconds it took me to write this.
Old Geek
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This thread reminds me of a post I read somewhere years ago. The question was how much insurance and the answer was something like this.... Depends on the type of flying you do. If you're carrying three investment bankers and crash into a crowded schoolyard, no amount of insurance is going to help you. If you crash solo into a mountain, just enough to remove the wreckage.
If you give a casual friend a ride in your car, and there's a fatal accident that's not clearly your fault, the friend's family probably isn't going to sue you, your family, the auto manufacturer, the construction contractor, the guardrail maker, etc. Yet that type of thing seems to happen fairly often after an airplane crash.
I just don't hear about that happening with cars.
Two things: first, you don't need to be partially responsible to get sued.
As for being negligent, whether you also expose and /or injure yourself in the process of operating your aircraft is completely irrelevant. You can be negligent in the process of causing risk to yourself, but your loss is not a liability because it is your own. That is why you have the property side of your insurance policy which is much stricter in the terms of pay out. You insure against your own negligence, that's part of it.
If you give a casual friend a ride in your car, and there's a fatal accident that's not clearly your fault, the friend's family probably isn't going to sue you, your family, the auto manufacturer, the construction contractor, the guardrail maker, etc. Yet that type of thing seems to happen fairly often after an airplane crash.
I just don't hear about that happening with cars.
The hell you say, there's billboard and TV ads for lawyers all over the place, and that's not for GA accidents. The auto manufacturers are continually inundated with suits and claims.
hindsight2020
Final Approach
Yep, I was about to highlight that very thing.
I don't do flight instruction as a private citizen anymore as it's no longer worth it considering what it can do to my ability to snag an airline job in the future. Likewise I cannot afford a grieving soccer mom suing me for what presumably is an amount (100K and 5K medical payments) too low for her expectation of a free activity on a Saturday morning with an entitled guarantee of safety in her mind.
The only people I fly in my airplane are my wife, my kid, my sister and my parents. People who won't sue me. The YE soccer moms or the weekend warrior dope I instructed years before, those wouldn't hesitate to sue me. I can't afford charity work anymore, it's the most expensive kind of work turns out.
txflyer
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A good friend of mine shut down his solo flight instruction practice because he said the insurance was absurd. Our field and town is too small for any volume. But he had customers.
He was working for pretty much zero after all said and done. I told him "welcome to a farmers world, you donate your labor, or you go broke."
Dave just does like biannuals and easy stuff now. He does my biannual and a lot of other guys by private appointment, but trying to operate a flight school, he was going in the hole.
He was working for pretty much zero after all said and done. I told him "welcome to a farmers world, you donate your labor, or you go broke."
Dave just does like biannuals and easy stuff now. He does my biannual and a lot of other guys by private appointment, but trying to operate a flight school, he was going in the hole.
Point taken. I guess I live in an area where that mentality has not completely taken over. And certainly not to the point where people are fearful of giving rides.
The number of auto fatalities was 76 times the number of GA fatalities in 2012. Maybe the aviation lawsuits get more press, but there seem to be more of them per fatal accident.
The tort legal system is the only place that 'Trickle Down Economics' actually functions. The thing is, it's just anther distraction, like the lottery, that keeps people dreaming that they'll be wealthy one day so they need to maintain the right to exploit.
In the end, it all costs us, the consumer.
You are correct, traffic fatalities are mundane and not reported.
denverpilot
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Negative. I'd have to look at the underwriter but it's one of multiple that Farmer's uses.
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Then you haven't been listening...If you give a casual friend a ride in your car, and there's a fatal accident that's not clearly your fault, the friend's family probably isn't going to sue you, your family, the auto manufacturer, the construction contractor, the guardrail maker, etc. Yet that type of thing seems to happen fairly often after an airplane crash.
I just don't hear about that happening with cars.
Alexb2000
En-Route
AIG is my underwriter, I add an extra $2M liability to my $1M smooth for about $1100 per year. I buy the non-owned aircraft liability policy from AOPA if I am flying someone else's aircraft for ~$250. Then I have a $2M umbrella through State Farm with no aviation exclusion for another ~$500.
If you really think about it $1M is nothing. This isn't 1975.
If you really think about it $1M is nothing. This isn't 1975.
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yep. Plaintiff's lawyer finds an article that says "Pilots should fly at least 20 hours a week to maintain peak proficiency" and suddenly, you as a pilot, who flies a couple hours a month are not meeting the standard of a "reasonable person".
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
If you give a casual friend a ride in your car, and there's a fatal accident that's not clearly your fault, the friend's family probably isn't going to sue you, your family, the auto manufacturer, the construction contractor, the guardrail maker, etc. Yet that type of thing seems to happen fairly often after an airplane crash.
I just don't hear about that happening with cars.
I assume you're joking here...just because you're friends doesn't mean the family isn't going to sue your estate, especially if there is any possibility that you had fault of any kind. Which, if you were driving, you probably did.
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
I'd be more worried about IPCs and BFRs than primary instruction. A lot of those guys fly once a year and want to take paxs places and you are certifying them safe...
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
If you give a casual friend a ride in your car, and there's a fatal accident that's not clearly your fault, the friend's family probably isn't going to sue you, your family, the auto manufacturer, the construction contractor, the guardrail maker, etc. Yet that type of thing seems to happen fairly often after an airplane crash.
I just don't hear about that happening with cars.
Yep, they are. If only to collect on your liability insurance limit.
mrkbbd
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It's one of those things you can't take personally...
Have you read your policy? Every policy I have had came with Non-Owned coverage included.
JimNtexas
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AOPA renters insurance is clearly better than that from Avemco. The AOPA limits per passenger liability to $100K, while Avemco limits per person liability to $100K.
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
Then you just have "excess" policies, not a big deal when the non-owned is so cheap
Given the responses, color me naive and uninformed.
Virtually everyone I know drives. Getting into a big legal and financial mess because of a crash is not a common story or concern. Nobody I know drives around worried about it.
A small percentage of people I know are involved in aviation. Yet I know some who have gone through hell thanks to crash-related lawsuits. A pilot who takes a passenger and makes a fatal error could end up with his family devastated financially and emotionally. Most of us think about that.
Why do umbrella policies exclude GA activities?
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
That's because they carry liability insurance.Given the responses, color me naive and uninformed.
Virtually everyone I know drives. Getting into a big legal and financial mess because of a crash is not a common story or concern. Nobody I know drives around worried about it.
Like I said in post #3, the answer to the concern is to insure against the loss.
That's a question for insurance companies. But there is a wide range of liability insurance tailored to GA available.
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
Market segmentation - it is a different risk
Alexb2000
En-Route
True, but for the money my logic is don't take the hit on my primary policy. I rather not have to explain a prior claim every year when I fill out my insurance forms.
Turningfinal
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Find me an insurance policy that can deal with the huge emotional toll of dealing with these types of lawsuits and I'd agree....
That about gets to the heart of it, I'd say. And this often occurs in conjunction with grieving the loss of a loved one. Hell * 2
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
The point of the insurance is to do a couple things:
1) Pay for the liability
2) Handle the defense.
For the most part, they will settle long before there is a significant "emotional toll". You get the notice you're being sued, you call the insurance company and they take it from there.
You don't know which policy takes the hit, which one was in place first? When you have a claim they will ask if there is any other insurance in place, if there was, there will be an issue.
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
You may not know about it even. The insurance companies will talk amongst themselves, and there are strict rules about which policy takes priority.
Right, it means he's paying a premium that he has cancelled out with another premium.
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
It's not cancelled - it's excess; and you will always be asked if there is any other insurance that MAY cover the accident...the insurance companies all deal with it on a daily basis, it's not that complicated and if it gets complicated you as an insured would never know because the two insurance companies fight behind the scenes as to who is primary...
But he also has an umbrella policy and this and the other policy. He's just throwing away premium for no benefit.
mrkbbd
Pre-takeoff checklist
Not be a d**k but there is no benefit to insurance unless there is an issue...he may need the coverage. I'm not sure what state he is in, but certain states allow for stacking, others don't. If he is in a stacking state, that may be the only way to get above the $1mm smooth limit.