Oh, Hail.......

[Keith Lane]

For the last month, I've been mostly on the road between Canada and California, and when home been on the honey do list that grows like kudzu (you southerners know what that's like) when I'm not there. Wednesday, I saw an opportunity to get in a little aviation therapy and took off early to get a fix. As I drove onto the ramp, the manager of the little operation there saw me and somewhat emphatically waved me over to him. I hopped out of the truck and greeted him. He says, "Boy am I glad to see you, I've lost your number and been needing to talk to you for three weeks." I figured it was about tiedown fees or whatever. He tells me that a hail storm three weeks ago "Beat the Hell" out of my plane. We go to see and what had happened was the fiberglass caps on the vert stab, rudder, and the end caps on the elevator/horizontal stabs were destroyed completely and only a very few marks in the metal part of the elevator control surfaces. The sun had taken it's toll, and they must have been pretty brittle. All in all not as bad as I had feared when he first told me.
The parts run about $700 for all the plastic parts and Cherry Max rivets (my A/P tells me he can use #6 screws if I want, with no legal problems as these are cosmetic and not structural. The rudder caps are on with screws from the factory) and about 4 hours labor. According to him, hail is considered an act of the divine and my rates won't increase for making a claim. I am concerned that they won't raise the rates, rather just not renew coverage (AOPA insurance Agency handles this).
Question:
Have any of you had a hail claim on your insurance, and if so, did it affect your coverage adversely in the subsequent years?
Of course now I have to go to back up near Labrador for 10 days and my need to fly is going to be epic before I get this fixed.
Thanks

 

[steingar]

My old Chairman had a hail storm ding the hell out of his 182. It was still airworthy, but they gave him a nice fat cheque to cover the depreciation. I don't recall his rates going up at all, and I know they didn't cancel his insurance.

 

[mikea]

We had a hail storm take out a fraction of exactly one row of planes. Other planes a mere 100 feet away were untouched.

Ol' T's Encoupe was considered totaled. He took the check even though the plane was perfectly flyable.

The insurance company sold the plane to a guy as salvage (I think). T heard from the guy several times requesting logs and history details. The Ercoupe is still flying.