Right before Christmas isn't a good time to
talk about this subject, but I'm afraid that if I wait, I'll have a
case of CRS. After several comments observed on the
LML, I decided to talk to my insurance broker and see what AIG would be
requiring at renewal. Seems that most of the comments were on target,
AIG wants a complete inspection of the aircraft by either Joe Bartels
or Tim Ong. We are all aware that neither of these gentlemen are
familiar with the many variations of the builders, especially
electrical and avionics. I can see the process causing more problems
than they fix with chasing down broken wires and the like.
I asked my broker to see what AIG
was going to require at my April renewal and received the following in
response:
…, AIG is requiring that all of the Lancairs
they now write have a new inspection. Under XXX’s policy, and as
your’s probably would be on renewal in April, AIG states that an aircraft inspection by Joe
Bartels or Tim Ong must be completed and the certificate received by AIG before renewal next year. In XXX’s case
he would have had to have this done by November 15, 2009. They have
paid out $10,000,000 in claims and have only collected $3,000,000 in
premium. After this inspection is completed it will then need to be
reinspected every 3 – 5 years. It sounds as to all of their claims are
coming from pilot error. However, if they are going to continue writing
the business they feel they need to put on this additional
requirement. A pilot’s hours really has nothing to do with this
particular requirement at this particular time. A pilot needs to have
the initial training, 6 month recurrent training, and then annual
thereafter.
My broker was asked to talk to Global as
several people said they got insurance through them. The following was
the answer received:
( I spoke with Global’s
manager this morning.
They are not writing any
policies for any Lancair IV model, except for some that they have had
on the books for years He said the loss experience has been
unbelievable and he made the decision back in 2003 not to write any
more of them. Apparently AIG has had all the losses.
He is very surprised that
they are willing to continue to write them. He anticipates that the
market will completely dry up and sometime in the future no one will
write them at all.
I spoke with AIG again . They provide the insurance for
the manufacturer so it would put them in a difficult position if they
were to decline to provide insurance for the individual owners.
After reviewing the NTSB
report, it appears as though the majority of the accidents are pilot
error. The aircraft inspection makes no sense to me, but I guess they
had to put on some requirement and that was it.)
This seems to imply that we are going to have
another bottleneck that will be difficult to break. To indicate that
only two people are able to certify the flight worthiness of our
aircraft puts both the owners and the company in dire straights. One,
who in their right minds would buy a Lancair kit with this hanging over
their head? Two, the requirement for reinspection at whatever interval
is onerous and expensive. Three, what is the value of the completed
and flying fleet? And Four, the requirement for training seems
appropriate to address the issues that the accident data reflects. How
many of those payouts came from pilots they insured without the HPAT
training? Is the company at fault for issuing coverage without
assuring the training? What exactly are they trying to fix with this
very time consuming and expensive requirement?
Looks like a real problem is on the very near
horizon. Thoughts and comments appreciated.
Pat Brunner
LNC4 /P
780 Hours