Sport Pilot Talk

My insurance is up for renewal. I was quite displeased with my AOPA insurance partner experience. The policy was written for "standard Airworthyness Certificate" and "Pilot with medical". There explanation was... "Don't worry, we know it's a LSA" forcing me to request written riders... a hassle.

What's the best instance company for LSA that has the proper language in there policy, competitive, along with everything else that makes a great insurance company?

Thanks!

Paul, I contacted Avemco with some pre-application questions. No replies yet. Just followed up with them.

Chris Wolbert at Aviation Insurance Resources (www.air-pros.com) is an excellent broker. He will shop prices for you.

Very competitive broker.

Gloria Dublin
Alexander Aviation Associates, Inc.
Phone: (321) 444-6577
Fax: (321) 444-6582
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.AlexanderAviation.com

Thanks for the suggestions on insurance guys. I ended up doing well with AOPA... after shopping around. I got my $2,600 quote down to $1,300 with same coverage. If you shop AOPA will match it. Supposedly they do not mark up premiums. Yet for some reason they were very high priced until we investigated further. To be fair, they may have mistaken my total hours in the first quote. Still the research and discussion was most productive. A nice thing about AOPA is that they can spread payments out if you don't want to prepay upfront.

Same for me an many others Chris Wolbert with Aviation Resources. $1313 a year for $115K coverage with good medical, liability and hull coverage.

I don't know which may be the best. I'm sure there are satisfied as well as non satisfied customers, sometimes within the same company.
So many variables come into play on a quote. TT, Time in type, last 12 months, etc..

I'm now with AOPA and it's nearing renewal time. Here's some info that's pertinent.
TT--1130---- PP rating, flying under SP rules
Time in type---305
Sting S4, S-LSA
Last 12 months----47
minor incident repair 2 yrs. ago. First ever.
$135,000 hull
1,000,000/ 100,000 liability
$1,490 Total premium for 12 months (last years premium)
Deductible-----$2500 in motion--$250 not in motion

I should do much better this year. Will get a quote in a few days and will post.
Hopefully, this can act as a benchmark for those renewing.

Update:
Same price with same coverage from USSIC through AOPA $1490

Quote from AIG: $1644
135,000 hull (same as last year)
Medical each person 10,000 (up from $5000 from USSIC)
No deductibles
Open pilot warranty. Any pilot, private or better certified with the FAA and approved by me. (compared with Named pilot only, me, through USSIC).
More territories to fly in compared with USSIC.

Much more coverage for $154 more.
I'm still working with AOPA to try and get the premium reduced. Hopefully they'd take into account the 32 ASF safety courses taken since 2006, mountain flying courses both academic and practical with the CAP, mission pilot and mission check pilot CAP, 30 year CAP experience.
I'm pulling out all the stops on this one. I'll post with final quote and see if any of the above made any difference.

Rich

BTW, I renew my insurance with AIG this month. The trend of steady decreases in premiums have continued.

Year 1: $1475

Year 2: $1310

Year 3: $1285

Year 4: $1150 (this year)

Unless I have an incident I expect this gentle downward trend to continue.

Keep flying physically and fiscally safe Andy!

designrs wrote:Keep flying physically and fiscally safe Andy!

And it would have still been cheaper for me to insure a 40 year old 4 seat complex aircraft than a modern LSA with a ballistic chute. Go figure.

I recently sold the Grumman and was considering replacing it with a Piper Arrow, I ended up going with the PiperSport. I was surprised to find out that the Arrow gave the best bang for the buck insurancewise even with retracts and more seats.


1969 Grumman AA1
1975 Piper Arrow II
2010 Pipersport

The quotes that I have break down the cost of coverage into two components, liability and hull coverage. All three policies have basically the same liability limits. 1,000,000 per occurrence and 100,000 per passenger.

.................................Liability..................................Hull
AA1............................196.00..................................1.095%
Arrow.........................197.00..................................1.146%
Pipersport....................213.00..................................1.2585%

Note that the liability coverage for the 4 seat Arrow and the 2 seat Grumman is about the same. The LSA is about 10% higher than the Arrow on both liability and hull coverage in spite of the fact that the Arrow has 4 seats and retracts.

Discounts applied
IFR rating -5%
Hangared -25%
AOPA Membership -5% Even though I used the EAA's broker/plan and am an EAA member!!

Pliot Experience
CSEL, CMEL, SES,
Private Pilot Glider - Aero Tow & Self Launch
CFI Instrument Airplane
Current 3rd Class medical
Wings Participant
1800 TT
185 Multiengine
335 Retracts
10 TW
10 Seaplane & Amphib
20 Glider

In the Grumman and The Pipersport the open pilot warranty would basically cover any appropriately rated pilot with no time in make and model requirement. The Arrow required 10 hours in make and model. Based on these and other aircraft that I have insured it appears that the cost to insure an SLSA is between a TC'd aircraft and an EAB. And about half as much as insuring an automobile in South Florida.

Just bound a policy today for my new Tecnam with AIG. Low time pilot, and "rusty" to boot, with very little time in the last 12 months. OPW discussed in the OPW thread but basically any private pilot is covered ... But not sport pilots. No time in type or minimum hours requirement.

The technical term for the premium is "a lot," but I expect that will go down over time ... The quotes I got were about the same.

Had very good support from both Falcon (AIG) and Hayes (Old Republic), and can recommend doing business with either.

Cheers!

Mine dropped a bunch... went with "Hallmark Aerospace Insurance Managers" who bought AIG Aerospace. $888, down about $450 from several prior years.

When asked, they amended my OPW to "light sport or more advanced pilot certificate and has a minimum of 500 total logged hours, including not less than 10 hours in the same make & model aircraft. Any person who is 75 years of age or older must hold a current and valid FAA medical certificate issued by an FAA medical examiner before acting as pilot in command of the aircraft."