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Insurance Ride

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 1:15 pm
by Jim Hardin
I have given a few insurance rides to new owners, the ones where the new owner is required to have 5 hours in make and model for his insurance to be valid. One or two companies wanted to know my hours but others did not.

2 have been Experimental Amateur Built, which I have never been in before. One of those asked for my time but was satisfied I had plenty of taildragger time. Other didn’t ask.

I am curious if this practice of not caring about the CFI’s time in type is the normal?

Funny one was in a Piper Comanche. Extremely cold winter and we were getting in a little night flying. It was his last hour and I wanted to have him go over the emergency gear extension while in flight. I was just going simulate it when he hit gear down and the breaker popped. Gear had been slow cycling. We tried several things since manual extension requires jacking the aircraft up to reset the gear motor. Nothing worked so we were going to do it for real... Still, no sweat as we had that option. We did a walk through with the checklist and then for real. He pulled the extension lever and promptly came back to the throttle announcing, “it won’t move”!
Talk.about a sinking feeling, nothing beats running out of options. So he read the checklist while I performed the procedures. Got to the extension part and sure enough it didn’t want to move. Now what? I put so extra effort into it and it moved, very slowly with constant resistance. I got him to get on it with me for the last part, so we had enough speed to assure a downlock. A&P told me the next day there was too much grease on it and the sub zero weather overloaded the motor. Owner sure got some experience in those 5 hours.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 2:07 pm
by 3Dreaming
A few years ago I had a friend who bought a Luscombe. I have 7,500 plus hours with over 1,000 tailwheel. The insurance company wanted me to have a checkout from the owner who was 80 years old. I called the agent who also happens to be my agent. I said, so they want me to fly with a 80 year old guy which puts us at gross weight on a short grass strip with 90° temps. That doesn't sound safe to me. He called that underwriter and got it approved for me to fly it without a checkout, but they still wanted me to have 5 hours PIC before giving any instruction.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:38 am
by rcpilot
So when I got the insurance for my Zenith 601 E-AB, I could fly it after 5 hours(which was silly since I had bought it to take lessons) and anyone else had to have 25 hours make and model. That was going to be an issue for my instructor who had never flown in one. The chief flight instructor called the insurance company and got them to agree to my instructor flying it 5 hours solo and then he would be OK to give me instruction.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 1:24 pm
by drseti
I had the same experience with my student's CH601. Insurance initially wanted me to have 5 hours in type just to fly it. I told them about my couple of thousand hours in SportStars (which have very similar flight characteristics) and they allowed me to solo it. But they still required me to have 5 hours in it before I could start giving the owner dual.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:16 pm
by TimTaylor
Question...if your insurance requires 5 hours in make and model for you to be covered by the insurance, could you fly the first 5 hours by yourself without insurance coverage to satisfy this requirement? Seems like you could unless they required 5 hours of dual.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:29 pm
by drseti
In my case, the insurance company allowed me coverage to fly it, but required me to log 5 hours solo before I could be covered to instruct in it. No dual was required. But every case is different, and each company has it's own policies.

CFIs who instruct for a lot of students in the students' own aircraft often purchase their own CFI policies. These are offered thru NAFI and others (but they're not cheap).

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:39 pm
by TimTaylor
TimTaylor wrote:Question...if your insurance requires 5 hours in make and model for you to be covered by the insurance, could you fly the first 5 hours by yourself without insurance coverage to satisfy this requirement? Seems like you could unless they required 5 hours of dual.
I'm just asking in regards to someone who buys an aircraft, can they satisfy the 5 hours or 25 hours or whatever it is by just flying without insurance coverage until they meet the requirement? I don't see why not if they are willing to risk flying without insurance for those hours. When my friend bought his Mooney, I flew with him for 25 hours before he flew solo.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 4:10 pm
by drseti
If the aircraft is financed, I'm sure the bank will require insurance to be in effect before anyone flies the plane.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:10 pm
by 3Dreaming
TimTaylor wrote:
TimTaylor wrote:Question...if your insurance requires 5 hours in make and model for you to be covered by the insurance, could you fly the first 5 hours by yourself without insurance coverage to satisfy this requirement? Seems like you could unless they required 5 hours of dual.
I'm just asking in regards to someone who buys an aircraft, can they satisfy the 5 hours or 25 hours or whatever it is by just flying without insurance coverage until they meet the requirement? I don't see why not if they are willing to risk flying without insurance for those hours. When my friend bought his Mooney, I flew with him for 25 hours before he flew solo.
Unlike cars in which most states require insurance coverage, there is nothing ilegal about flying an airplane without insurance if you are willing to take the risk.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:32 pm
by TimTaylor
I'm sure both of those responses are correct, but they don't really answer the question. I suppose you would need to call you insurance company and ask them.

Re: Insurance Ride

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 10:29 pm
by 3Dreaming
TimTaylor wrote:I'm sure both of those responses are correct, but they don't really answer the question. I suppose you would need to call you insurance company and ask them.
The insurance company doesn't care if you get your time in the airplane before their coverage starts. As long as they have no risk, they don't care.