Insurance premiums

[jaylw314]

I just got this year's quote from Old Republic, and they are quoting exactly the same as last year.  It went up 25% the year before, but hopefully this means there's some steadiness coming?

[MikeOH]

Mine was flat from last year, as well.  But I opted to raise hull, so a little more.

[1980Mooney]

50 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

I just got this year's quote from Old Republic, and they are quoting exactly the same as last year.  It went up 25% the year before, but hopefully this means there's some steadiness coming?

Has anyone seen steadiness in shop rates, the prices of parts, cost of repairs?  Perhaps that just means one is more likely to be underinsured and their plane is more likely to be totaled.  

2 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Mine was flat from last year, as well.  But I opted to raise hull, so a little more.

Exactly.

[carusoam]

Do we have a feeling for how much our hulls have increased in value lately?

Ball park percentage number people are adding?

Just paid the insurance bill last week, and caused the same question to come to mind…

Best regards,

-a-

[alextstone]

4 hours ago, carusoam said:

Do we have a feeling for how much our hills have increased in value lately?

Ball park percentage number people are adding?

Just paid the insurance bill last week, and caused the same question to come to mind…

Best regards,

-a-

My guess is 20% increased value on average.

[kortopates]

I just renewed with USAIG and saw a a good discount from last year. I also asked to raise my hull value, I was already at the max they would allow last year but this year it was no problem to raise my hull 60K, 26% because I have a high end glass panel. That ate up most of the discount from last year.


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[amillet]

I just renewed with USAIG through Falcon $1M smooth/ $200K hull and my premium went up $500.  When I asked if they gave a discount for attending the. MAPA PPP I received this reply.

 I reached out to the underwriter regarding the discount, he did say they gave a discount for renewal.  With the $1M smooth all rates went up.

Maybe not completely truthful?

[MikeOH]

8 hours ago, carusoam said:

Do we have a feeling for how much our hulls have increased in value lately?

Ball park percentage number people are adding?

Just paid the insurance bill last week, and caused the same question to come to mind…

Best regards,

-a-

Based on no data beyond my gut feel, I upped my hull 15%

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

I just renewed with USAIG and saw a a good discount from last year. I also asked to raise my hull value, I was already at the max they would allow last year but this year it was no problem to raise my hull 60K, 26% because I have a high end glass panel. That ate up most of the discount from last year.


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Did you fly more this year, or something else you did that caused your decrease?

 I was happy mine was flat, but now I’m jealous!

[PT20J]

The problem with all these comparisons is that it's not clear that we are comparing apples to oranges.

Since the insurance has two major components, hull and liability, it would be good to know how the year-to-year pricing compares for each. Also, it would be good to know the coverage limits. 

Skip

[carusoam]

3 minutes ago, PT20J said:

The problem with all these comparisons is that it's not clear that we are comparing apples to oranges.

 

Skip

Are you implying that Paul (great CFII, plenty of years, and hours of experience, mechanic with tremendous engine knowledge) and I (an ordinary PP)…. have dissimilar flying risks?

I know I pay a lot…

I’m surprised by how much people with tremendous relevant experience pay as well…

 

In the past… the price of the PPP class was about equal to the insurance discount…. Which made a ton of sense to visit a bunch of Mooniacs for a weekend of flying….

PP hanging out with friends kind of humor… 

Best regards,

-a-

[PT20J]

1 minute ago, carusoam said:

Are you implying that Paul (great CFII, plenty of years, and hours of experience, mechanic with tremendous engine knowledge) and I (an ordinary PP)…. have dissimilar flying risks?

I know I pay a lot…

I’m surprised by how much people with tremendous relevant experience pay as well…

 

In the past… the price of the PPP class was about equal to the insurance discount…. Which made a ton of sense to visit a bunch of Mooniacs for a weekend of flying….

PP hanging out with friends kind of humor… 

Best regards,

-a-

No, I was thinking more about the difference between $1MM smooth liability and lesser coverage and/or sublimits due to @amillet's post.

We all want credit for our hard-earned experience, but after a relatively small number of hours in type and an instrument rating, the insurance companies don't seem to care. Richard Collins wrote that one reason he sold his P-210 was the inability to continue to obtain insurance at the limits he wanted. Many companies just don't seem to like old pilots. And, they hate retracts and seaplanes -- and most especially amphibs!

Last renewal, a direct quote from the underwriter was "the gear ups are killing us." Five years with no gear ups would be the best way to get rates down.

Skip

[MikeOH]

I wonder if there is a market for an insurance policy that EXCLUDES gear-ups?  I'd sign up for that assuming the rates came down a significant amount.  Which they should if insurance companies are really "being killed" by gear-ups.

The other factor would be how many are really caused by true mechanical failure; I suspect not many, which is why I would sign up.  But does anyone really know the breakdown between mechanical gear failure and brain fade?

[carusoam]

The number of gear problems are usually quite limited…

1) a broken push/pull tube affecting one of the three gear… (usually a gear rigging issue)

2) The electric gear clashing with the e-gear mechanism… disabling both systems… (proper stowage and checklist of the e-gear)

3) pile driving the nose gear into the ground on the third or fourth bounce… (highly rare to fight all the way into the fourth bounce…)

4) Mechanical GUs are quite rare around here…

5) Pilot GUs are quite rare among MSers… compared to other Mooney communities… or lack of a Mooney community for them…

6) It really helps to know and have a good feeling for how this human failure works…

It is much easier to make sure the gumps check gets completed…

easier to go around when you haven’t finished the gumps check to your satisfaction…

really easy to have that method of checking a green light on short final before comfortably landing…

Go MS!

Go MSers!

Best regards,

-a-

[carusoam]

1 hour ago, MikeOH said:

I wonder if there is a market for an insurance policy that EXCLUDES gear-ups?  I'd sign up for that assuming the rates came down a significant amount.  Which they should if insurance companies are really "being killed" by gear-ups.

 

I think this would be a great option for me… when I hit the octo level, and the insurance company wants me to trade down to a fixed gear Mooney…

There are only three fixed gear M20Ds left on the register…

We can’t all have one… unless we are all living in the same Airpark… which could be pretty nice… one on the left coast, one on the right…

Best regards,

-a-

[amillet]

My hangar neighbor just became the president of the flying octogenarians  https://www.ufopilots.org. ( he flies an RV). One of the members is another Sequim pilot who flies an M20C.  I’m only a little more than 8 years from qualifying for membership 

[PT20J]

Everyone worries about the no-back springs used in Plessey and Eaton actuators. But it doesn’t seem like a lot have failed. 

PLESSEY: The original Mooney SI for Plessey mentions 2 failures. There was a recent accident in the NTSB database for a gear up due to a failed Plessey spring. A search of the FAA SDR database shows two entries: one for a failed spring and one for some internal defect not determined. So, the total documented failures is 4 or 5.

EATON: The Mooney SB mentions a single failure. It may have been due to a manufacturing issue because it caused Eaton to recall a certain serial number range. I can’t find any issues listed in the SDR database.

I’m not sure how many Plessey actuators were used vs Eaton, but Plessey has been out of production for some time (maybe since the 1989 acquisition?) so I suspect there may be more Eatons.

Skip

[Freight Dog]

13 hours ago, kortopates said:

I just renewed with USAIG and saw a a good discount from last year. I also asked to raise my hull value, I was already at the max they would allow last year but this year it was no problem to raise my hull 60K, 26% because I have a high end glass panel. That ate up most of the discount from last year.


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I heard your plane on CentAmer frequency today. I was flying SWA809 and heard a Mooney checking in at 14,000. Too cool!!! 

[A64Pilot]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:14 AM, alextstone said:

My guess is 20% increased value on average.

It depends of course on what years your comparing of course, but as a swag comparing 2019 prices to now, I think 20% is pretty close

[A64Pilot]

17 hours ago, PT20J said:

 

EATON: The Mooney SB mentions a single failure. It may have been due to a manufacturing issue because it caused Eaton to recall a certain serial number range. I can’t find any issues listed in the SDR database.

 

That’s the $$$ question of course, if my paid for spring ever arrives I plan on changing mine, but largely due to I think a 42 yr old actuator really needs to be disassembled, cleaned and regressed anyway, grease only lasts just so long, and if your doing that may as well change the spring too.

So far as the gear ups, my guess is that mechanical failure is so rare that it’s just not a big factor, what IS a big factor I believe is people who aren’t at the level of experience they should be at are buying complex aircraft, and of course make mistakes as we all would in the same situation.

I don’t think it has anything g to do with the aircraft design etc.

[Hank]

6 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

 So far as the gear ups, my guess is that mechanical failure is so rare that it’s just not a big factor, what IS a big factor I believe is people who aren’t at the level of experience they should be at are buying complex aircraft, and of course make mistakes as we all would in the same situation.

I don’t think it has anything g to do with the aircraft design etc.

A lot of it is simply distraction, something unusual happens and the pilot, regardless of experience level, gets thrown off of his game.

[PT20J]

Food for thought.

https://www.avweb.com/features/pelicans-perch-80-gear-up-landing-in-a-747/

Skip

[A64Pilot]

25 minutes ago, Hank said:

A lot of it is simply distraction, something unusual happens and the pilot, regardless of experience level, gets thrown off of his game.

Yes most of its distraction, but just like driving a car, flying if you do it enough becomes sort of instinctual, for example when you first start driving you are far more likely to pull out in front of someone because you misjudged their distance or speed or whatever, but as you gain experience your less likely to do it, then age and it’s effects begin to set in, initially you can compensate for age’s effects with your experience, but as the deterioration of skills continues you can only compensate for just so long, eventually as you get old enough, your skill level is back where it was when you first started, and as you get older of course it gets worse, just a fact of life.

But same person with a lot more experience is much less likely to gear up, they aren’t immune, but much less likely.

5 minutes ago, PT20J said:

Food for thought.

https://www.avweb.com/features/pelicans-perch-80-gear-up-landing-in-a-747/

Skip

I didn’t read all of that but enough so that I think I got the gist of it.

Years ago the FAA commissioned a study to be conducted by several medical schools, what they wanted was an explanation why rarely, but sometimes a very experienced aviator just does something really stupid, way out of the ordinary, like a 747 driver landing way long and killing everyone. Or the guy who drives the same way to work everyday for the last ten years, today he ran the stop sign that’s always been there, why?

Well beyond determining that in fact it does in fact happen, all they got for the money they spent was an Acronym called SLOJ, for sudden loss of judgement.

To handle it the Army anyway decided no more single pilot missions, the likelihood of two pilots getting stupid was less, but there were fewer accidents, but still some stupid ones were occurring, it was decided that most were due to excessive professional courtesy, meaning the second in command wouldn’t speak up, or was ignored if they did.

I remember one cockpit voice recording where the CP kept telling the PIC that he was too high and fast, that he couldn’t make it, after the second comment the PIC asked the Engineer what the difference was between a CP and a duck? Answer was the duck can fly. Before running off the end of the runway the CP said I told you you couldn’t make it.

So out came what we called in the Army as the most conservative response rule, if there was a disagreement, the most conservative response is what would be taken.

But in single pilot ops, once in a blue moon SLOJ will strike, thankfully it’s very rare, people always have and always will rarely do stupid things.

[kortopates]

On 1/15/2023 at 9:27 AM, amillet said:

I just renewed with USAIG through Falcon $1M smooth/ $200K hull and my premium went up $500.  When I asked if they gave a discount for attending the. MAPA PPP I received this reply.

 I reached out to the underwriter regarding the discount, he did say they gave a discount for renewal.  With the $1M smooth all rates went up.

Maybe not completely truthful?

I also have $1M smooth with USAIG and got the discount and made no mention of having instructed at least 3 PPP's last year.

On 1/15/2023 at 9:44 AM, MikeOH said:

Did you fly more this year, or something else you did that caused your decrease?

 I was happy mine was flat, but now I’m jealous!

I average ~300 hrs a year, the majority instructing in other people's Mooney with no significant change there. But I was really paranoid because my wife only logged 15 hrs this past year because largely the plane was in the avionics shop for several months getting its second major panel upgrade. With so few hours I thought we really needed to get her a Flight Review done before sending off the Pilot History form update to help compensate. But we weren't able too with us leaving town on our CENAM trip. So I was really sweating we would get hit with an increase. Boy was I pleasantly surprised when I saw the rate reduction! But most of all I've been really concerned about being under insured and thankful they allowed a significant hull increase.

Edited January 16, 2023 by kortopates

[kortopates]

20 hours ago, Freight Dog said:

I heard your plane on CentAmer frequency today. I was flying SWA809 and heard a Mooney checking in at 14,000. Too cool!!! 

Hey thanks! I was guessing it was passing by Coco's but I see it was going by Liberia. We had departed Panama heading into El Salvador. 

I would love to stop in Costa Rica, but twice we've done trips down here and each time I gave up stopping in Costa Rica because of the huge fees they charge for us little guys.  They wanted near $300 a day to park over night and now they no overnight parking at all AO's unless you get detained for wx or something . They really don't want us. So when we did  3 week touring trip in Costa Rica it was by airliner!

Edited January 16, 2023 by kortopates