Scott, Brook, and the others at Skysmith are the best. Having lost one KR to a crash without insurance about 3 years ago and one Skysmith/AIG insured 1949 Piper Clipper less than a year ago to a storm I have a lot of experience in this area that can hopefully help someone out.
When I first looked at insurance on the KR it was pretty expensive because I had no KR time and only a few tailwheel hours. I figured that I would wait until I got 50 hours in the KR then get the insurance and save a lot of money. I really could not afford to loose a plane, but I rationalized the decision to myself with the idea that the chance of hurting anyone other than myself in the KR was pretty slim and if I killed myself my life insurance was enough that hull insurance on the plane would not make much difference. I also figured that with any crash of the KR that I could walk away from I would still at the very least have an engine and all of the instruments and radios and I could always buy a project KR and get back in the air for under 5 grand. What I never counted on was the post crash fire that would destroy everything and leave me with only part of a tailwheel still usable. Needless to say, but I was kicking myself every day when I no longer had a plane to fly and could not afford to get anoter one for about a year. Oh, and the thing that really hurt was that I had 45 hours in the KR and would have been getting the insurance probably the next week. So about twelve grand in the KR for 45 hours works out to $267 per flight hour. Still worth every penny, but it would have certainly been a lot better with an insurance check at the end of it to get back in the air. The Clipper was insured and I used the insurance check to buy a Pacer a few weeks later. There are some lessons I learned with it also. Aircraft insurance is different from car insurance. If you total your car they give you the book value of it regardless of what it is insured for. With aircraft insurance if it is totaled they give you what you had it insured for then auction off the remains. If your plane is worth $20,000 and you insure it for $10,000 you get $10,000. If you had it insured for $50,000 you get $50,000. This makes it important to think about what you are insuring it for. If you had it insured for $10,000 they will total it after a minor $7,000 damage accident knowing that they will come out better than if they pay to have it fixed. If you had the plane insured for $50,000 and have a major accident that will require a $35,000 rebuild job they will pay to have it fixed and you will wind up getting back a plane with a history of major damage that took forever to repair. So don't over or under insure unless you are willing to live with the results. If they do total your plane you can ask them to give you a price on the salvage. They will offer it for about what they think they can auction it for which may or may not be a good deal. If you don't take it you can still bid on it at auction and it may or may not go for more than they offered it to you for. Do keep in mind that you will loose your deductible in the check they give you and the premiums for the policy. I had my Clipper insured for $18,000 and just got the insurance a month before the storm destroyed it. I had to make up for the $1,000 deductible plus having to come up with another $2,100 to insure the Pacer just a month after paying $2,300 to insure the Clipper. We made sure that the Pacer was insured for $3,000 more than we paid for it. Incidently, AIG actually lowered the premium on the second plane even though I was prepared for a big increase since they just totaled the other one. I had a partner in it and he went from 0 hours to about 30 so that probably accounted for it going lower, but we were pretty happy that it did not go up. I guess that freak weather accidents don't affect your rates. Brian Kraut Engineering Alternatives, Inc. www.engalt.com -----Original Message----- From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net]On Behalf Of Mark Langford Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 7:21 AM To: KRnet Cc: Corvair engines for homebuilt aircraft Subject: KR> insurance NetHeads, My insurance bill came a couple of months ago, and the price was relatively unchanged from the year before, about $600 for liability alone for my KR2S. I had no problem getting hull insurance for $25k when I first started flying, but I quickly came to the conclusion that if I rolled it up in a ball, the last thing I'd want to see is some insurance company hauling away the remains of what would be a substantial headstart toward the construction of my next one, so I dropped the hull insurance after the first year. Anyway, I thought I'd check out Sky Smith because a lot of folks swear by him, so I did. I got EXACTLY the same coverage from him as what I had the year before, through EXACTLY the same carrier (AIG), for half the price. That's $300 that I can do something else with. He's at http://www.skysmith.com/ . Just thought it might help out some other folks, and no, I don't get kickbacks, favors, or whatever... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S homebuilt airplane N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net _______________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://www.maddyhome.com/krsrch/index.jsp to UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@mylist.net Post photos, introductions, and For Sale items to http://www.kr2forum.com/phpBB2/index.php please see other KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html
