Philosophical question on owning & IFR rating

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:56:31 GMT, kontiki
wrote:

Ben Jackson wrote:
I'm not so sure about that. I passed a lot of insurance milestones
in my first year of ownership (including getting my instrument rating
and 100 make&model, retract, etc) and my insurance only went down about
10%. It will take years to make back the cost of the IR, but that's not
why I did it!


Well... I wonder what your premium what have been initially had you
purchased the plane/policy initially having the rating Vs. not having
the rating? There are different forces at work when negotiating for
a policy having an instrument rating along with "X" number of PIC hours
going in Vs. a PPL VFR only. Expecting "Y" amount of $$ reduction on
your policy premium after getting the rating is not written into the
contract.

Its a matter of pay me now or pay me more later.. its all money...
better to spend it on training initally than pay for higher premiums
and have less $$ for training and/or flying later.

I had the same experience as Ben. My broker circulates new quotes
with my latest pilot data each year (TT, Time in type, ratings). As
long as the company has a good rating, I go wherever the rate is
cheapest. When I renewed in Spring 2002 after getting my IFR my price
dropped about 5%. Had I stayed VFR only, I believe that it would have
risen about 10% given the effects of 9/11 on GA insurance. So a gross
savings of about 15%.

-Nathan