Temporary Insurance for Pre Buy

[UMRPIlot8]

I am about to sign a purchase agreement on a 1969 F model that's in Oregon, (I'm in Maryland) but I just found out the current owner doesn't currently have the airplane insured so it can't be flown to a shop to do a pre buy.  Does anyone know if an Insurance company will insure an airplane temporarily to ferry to a location for a pre-buy, or can a shop insure the airplane for the purposes of a ferry flight?  The original A&P I was going to use, and could travel to the airport its hangared at, has too much backlog and isn't available for over a month.  I left a voicemail with Advanced Aircraft in Troutdale and I'm waiting for a call back.

Thanks in advanced

[201er]

@Parker_Woodruff should be able to answer off the top of his head

[dzeleski]

6 minutes ago, UMRPIlot8 said:

I am about to sign a purchase agreement on a 1969 F model that's in Oregon, (I'm in Maryland) but I just found out the current owner doesn't currently have the airplane insured so it can't be flown to a shop to do a pre buy.  Does anyone know if an Insurance company will insure an airplane temporarily to ferry to a location for a pre-buy, or can a shop insure the airplane for the purposes of a ferry flight?  The original A&P I was going to use, and could travel to the airport its hangared at, has too much backlog and isn't available for over a month.  I left a voicemail with Advanced Aircraft in Troutdale and I'm waiting for a call back.

Thanks in advanced

Parker is 100% the person to ask but I would be asking many questions around why the airplane is not insured. To me thats quite a large red flag.

[1980Mooney]

19 minutes ago, UMRPIlot8 said:

I am about to sign a purchase agreement on a 1969 F model that's in Oregon, (I'm in Maryland) but I just found out the current owner doesn't currently have the airplane insured so it can't be flown to a shop to do a pre buy.  Does anyone know if an Insurance company will insure an airplane temporarily to ferry to a location for a pre-buy, or can a shop insure the airplane for the purposes of a ferry flight?  The original A&P I was going to use, and could travel to the airport its hangared at, has too much backlog and isn't available for over a month.  I left a voicemail with Advanced Aircraft in Troutdale and I'm waiting for a call back.

Thanks in advanced

I am confused. A plane doesn’t need insurance to fly. And you don’t own it (yet) - otherwise what is the purpose of the prebuy? When do you actually take ownership? After prebuy and no airworthiness issues? Or will there be more haggling on price depending on condition?

There are 2 issues. First who will fly it to the prebuy shop?  That pilot needs his own insurance for Liability. (Like having renters insurance). Second, if anything happens to the plane the current owner takes a loss on his asset and is subject to lawsuit/liability. 
 

Unless you are flying it, this is not your problem.  

[skykrawler]

It seems like the original owner is flying uninsured.  If so, he should have no problem flying the airplane to the place of inspection.

If the owner can't do that, then whoever does fly it may want the liability protection.

Presumably, you have thoroughly examined the aircraft logs and understand the written maintenance history, the compliance with ADs and general airworthiness at least from a pilot perspective.    For example, do all the avionics/radios/indicators in the panel work?  Have you flown in the airplane with the owner (risky business in and of itself)? If you haven't done that you may be relying on the pre-buy inspection too much.

[1980Mooney]

17 minutes ago, dzeleski said:

Parker is 100% the person to ask but I would be asking many questions around why the airplane is not insured. To me thats quite a large red flag.

As a lot of our fleet is 50-60 years old you find planes in all conditions and situations. Obviously a buyer needs to understand the condition of the plane. There are hangar queens that are not insured and there are hangar queens that are insured. It’s not the insurance that makes any difference. It is more about how it has been flown and stored over its life and currently. 

[UMRPIlot8]

@1980Mooney, you have valid points.  In all my research I've read a lot of prebuy stories.  Airplanes being flown to preferred shops to do a prebuy or people have their mechanics go to the airplane, but I don't remember reading any that said, " the airplanes wasn't insured so........".  It took me by surprise.  I'm sure someone on here has experienced this before, so I was curious if anyone could share their knowledge.

@skykrawler, I do know the current owner and last flew in the airplane a couple years ago.  Back then it was a solid airplane, and the log books and AD compliance currently appear to be in good order.  I've been talking to the owner about it for months, and my guess is once he ferried it to the broker's airport, the insurance came due for renewal and he didn't renew it.  

[Parker_Woodruff]

Procedurally speaking, it could be done if the owner got a policy for it or if the buyer leased it first for more 30+ days.

I've had people ask to do this before and I'm not signing an insurance company up for a day's worth of premium (that could be around $5 on a plane like this, including about 75 cents of commission to the broker after spending about $2-9 on DocuSigns and $3-$ to absorb an ACH fee) to take a risk of on flight.  So I'd negotiate a minimum earned premium to do this.

If the plane needs a special flight permit to get this done, the insurance piece might not get done at all.

Older airplanes are being tough enough on the loss ratios without adding one to the mix that hasn't been flying for a tiny amount of premium.

[dzeleski]

59 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

As a lot of our fleet is 50-60 years old you find planes in all conditions and situations. Obviously a buyer needs to understand the condition of the plane. There are hangar queens that are not insured and there are hangar queens that are insured. It’s not the insurance that makes any difference. It is more about how it has been flown and stored over its life and currently. 

Completely understand. If an owner told me "I self insure, it flies regularly" its no problem. If an owner told me "I stopping flying the airplane and let the insurance lapse, or I ran out of money so I stopped insuring it" I would start to have significant concerns about buying a project rather then a flying airplane. The fact that buying discussions got this far before the owner just casually says "oh btw its not insured" is alarming, to me at least. What else isnt being disclosed?

At this point it might be easier just to have an A&P inspect on site and then make a buying decision from that, get insurance for the full year, get a ferry permit, and fly it away if its even in a state where it can fly away.