Stupid Pilot Tricks - Insurance Co. Trying to Back Out

Apparently, the insurance co of the pilot who lost his amphibious float
plane on landing (see "Stupid Pilot Tricks" and Followup a couple of weeks
ago) and parked it in a hangar with a Comanche already inside, is trying to
get out of paying anything since the pilot was on drugs. Not surprising,
but that leaves the owners of the two other planes involved and the airport
(hangar owners) with no recourse but to claim on their own insurance. I
guess this is just the way it works, but it's a shame that the pilot's
insurance won't at least pay the innocent parties' claims and then go after
the pilot themselves.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
America

"Bob Chilcoat" wrote in message
...
Apparently, the insurance co of the pilot who lost his amphibious float
plane on landing (see "Stupid Pilot Tricks" and Followup a couple of weeks
ago) and parked it in a hangar with a Comanche already inside, is trying
to
get out of paying anything since the pilot was on drugs. Not surprising,
but that leaves the owners of the two other planes involved and the
airport
(hangar owners) with no recourse but to claim on their own insurance. I
guess this is just the way it works, but it's a shame that the pilot's
insurance won't at least pay the innocent parties' claims and then go
after
the pilot themselves.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
America


Why should they pay a claim if they are not required to? If the policy
isn't in force if the pilot is on drugs, then the parked planes were hit by
an uninsured pilot. The insurance company is not insuring the damaged
planes, it is insuring the pilot who caused the accident and, even then,
only subject to various requirments. I agree that it is unfortunate for the
victums.

Mike
MU-2

In article t,
"Mike Rapoport" wrote:

Why should they pay a claim if they are not required to?

Fair question -- but from a broader social point of view, if an
expensive object (like an airplane) that has some small but significant
change of causing massive damage to innocent third parties is going to
be exist and be operated at all, maybe (or for sure, IMHO) it should be
impossible for it to operate, or even exist, without at least liability
coverage for damage to others.

So maybe a legislative requirement on any company providing any kind of
aviation related insurance should be that all their policies must always
contain third-party liability coverage -- insurance on a plane should be
required to include liability coverage for others no matter who operates
it (even if it's stolen); insurance on a pilot should include liability
coverage for others, no matter what plane he operates (or in what
condition).

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

Our governor just vetoed drivers license for undocumented immigrants on
grounds of inadequate insurance provisions: also a good idea,
independent of views on whether undocumented immigrants should be given
drivers licenses at all.

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:27:14 -0700, AES/newspost
wrote:

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

New Jersey has this type of insurance as well.

z

zatatime wrote:

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:27:14 -0700, AES/newspost
wrote:

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

New Jersey has this type of insurance as well.

Is this related to the fact that we've so much trouble getting/keeping
companies to do insurance business here? Or is this unrelated?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Is this related to the fact that we've so much trouble getting/keeping
companies to do insurance business here? Or is this unrelated?

No, and things have improved in that regard since Florio was voted out. There were
two main reasons for the problems there.

One - because it was argued that premiums paid by NJ drivers somehow supported lower
premiums elsewhere in the country, only New Jersey companies could write auto
insurance here. That led to a number of national companies spinning off subsidiaries
(eg. Aetna wrote policies as Aetna of New Jersey). It also made it easier for various
fat cats to play protection games with the companies, but corruption is hard to
prove. It also turned out that, to some extent, premiums charged elsewhere in the
U.S. were supporting lower premiums in NJ simply by expanding the risk base. This
restriction was eliminated (or at least relaxed) in the Whitman administration, and I
now have insurance with a Delaware branch of AIG.

Two - because it was argued that unfairly high premiums were being charged to allow
companies to make more money in other investments, the State required that the
majority of the premiums be kept as liquid assets to pay claims. As it turns out, the
profit on investments (when there is profit) subsidizes premiums and keeps them lower
than they otherwise would be. Forcing a company to pay claims completely out of
premiums increased the premiums. When Florio put caps on rates, some companies just
gave up. I do not know what has changed in those regulations, but they couldn't have
kept it like that and allow out-of-state companies into the market, so I believe it's
been changed.

One thing Florio did that helped keep insurance companies from leaving was his "bad
driver" measures. Basically, if you make a claim on your auto insurance, this will
result in surcharges by the State, most of which are returned to your insurance
company. Own a 5 year old car, hit some ice and wrap it around a tree, and that
accident will result in surcharges over the next three years that will approximately
equal the settlement you get from your collision insurance. Another measure involves
traffic tickets. Pick up a few tickets, and that will result in surcharges that go
into a pool to underwrite insurance for people who would otherwise find it hard to
get a policy.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Yes, and in New Jersey you can probably insure a $50,000 Cessna for less
than a $50,000 Lexus, with higher liability limits to boot.

"zatatime" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:27:14 -0700, AES/newspost
wrote:

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

New Jersey has this type of insurance as well.

z

"C Kingsbury" wrote in message ink.net...

Yes, and in New Jersey you can probably insure a $50,000 Cessna for less
than a $50,000 Lexus, with higher liability limits to boot.

The fact that the NJ auto insurance follows the car has no bearing on the
fact that the insurance situation up there is a citole. The problem is that
the legislature is full of personal injury lawyers and the insurance system is
the screwiest half-assed no-fault ever seen which pretty much encourages
everybody to go to court. Most companies won't write coverage there if
they can avoid it which means that a third of the state's drivers are in an
equally corruptly administered uninsured drivers pool.

My insurance dropped to 25% of what it was before when I moved from NJ
to VA. My insurance company always insured both me (in other people's cars)
and my car (when other people drive) in both states.

zatatime

Ditto Texas.

Big John

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:33:52 GMT, zatatime
wrote:

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:27:14 -0700, AES/newspost
wrote:

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

New Jersey has this type of insurance as well.

z

"AES/newspost" wrote in message
...

So maybe a legislative requirement on any company providing any kind of
aviation related insurance should be that all their policies must always
contain third-party liability coverage -- insurance on a plane should be
required to include liability coverage for others no matter who operates
it (even if it's stolen); insurance on a pilot should include liability
coverage for others, no matter what plane he operates (or in what
condition).

Great idea. After all, there are far too many insurance companies writing
small plane coverage and they're charging way too little for it.

My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

Absolutely! Because we all know most accidents are caused by cars, not
drivers. While we're at it, why not get rid of car insurance all together
and mandate that the electric company get insurance for those lightposts
that are always jumping in front of cars?

-cwk.