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Minimum time that insurance requires for SIC?

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The policies "at discretion of chief pilot" is used at many large 91/135 flight departments. Usually every year each pilot will get a survey to fill in their total time, time in type, medical, education, driving history,...... The underwriter then uses this info. to determine/negotiate a premium for the year.
Congrats on opportunity, what kind of equip. do they fly?
 
T-REX said:
The policies "at discretion of chief pilot" is used at many large 91/135 flight departments. Usually every year each pilot will get a survey to fill in their total time, time in type, medical, education, driving history,...... The underwriter then uses this info. to determine/negotiate a premium for the year.
Congrats on opportunity, what kind of equip. do they fly?

We are hardly a large department, 1 plane and 2 pilots, but I have and have had for sometime the "any pilot designated by the chief pilot" authority. Of course I have a good history with the agent and the underwriter.
 
Be very careful about going down this path...

Make sure you have enough experience and the ability to perform well if hired. A lot of Chief Pilots hate it when a person gets "shoved down their throats." If the Chief Pilot accepts you when he'd rather have someone else more experienced your life could be miserable... To add to that, you can bet that the pilots already there have their own buddys they are trying to get on and when you come along with 400 hrs. after some friend of theirs had been shot down with 6000 tt you will not be too popular.

My two cents and yes, I have seen this happen...

Remember that the personnel dynamics of a flight department are as important as pay, benefits, etc... They don't want anyone to come in and screw it up as well as you don't want to be the one that comes in and screws it up.
 
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These guys are right, it's all about the underwriter. It sounds like your guys are letting the broker get away with being lazy. I used to think the same way until a good friend of mine got in the av-insurance business, then the learning began. When a pilot tells you his insuranece won't allow him to hire you, that is a lie, or, his broker should be fired. The broker works for you, and should not tell you who you can and cannot hire. The relationship the broker has with the underwriter is the key. If your broker just faxes over your times and waits for a response, then no, you will not get hired. But if the broker calls the underwriter and says hey look, I know the chief pilot, he has been a customer of ours for years, and he wants this guy on board. What can we do? If the broker has any type of relationship with the underwriter, then you have a new job. A few years ago I was flying a medium sized jet and the company I worked for also had a large cabin airplane. I got called into the CEO's office one day and was asked why I was not flying their larger aircraft. (They hated the CP and always called the other pilots directly when they wanted something) I told them the insurance company told me I did not meet the mins, and I was then told to try again and do what I needed to do. I didn't know anything about av-insurance at the time, so I called our broker, NationAir, and asked for our broker, Tesa Hartman. She was not in, and I told the secretary what I wanted and she said fax in your times, ect and they would get back to me in a couple of days. Well, they didnt and so after 4 days of hearing nothing from them, I called everyday for the next 2 weeks only to get the run around. I finally got Tesa Hartman and she said no, it was hard enough to get me insured on the other aircraft and the underwriter said no. A few months after that my friend got into the av-insurance business and I told him what had happened, and he said she didnt even send in your info. I talked my comapny into switching brokers at renewal time, and sure enough, I got approved for the larger aircraft the same day we switched. How you ask? After being in the av-insurance business for less than 2 months, he picked up the phone and called the underwriter. I was sitting in his office listening on speaker phone when it happened. So, don't let someone give you the run around, and stay away from Nationair and Tesa Hartman, as they'll take your premiums and then sit on their A@@.
 
Lead Sled said:
FWIW (and it's just my personal opinion) don't be in too big a rush to get yourself into the right seat of a jet. Invest the time in your future to learn how to fly. And I'm not talking merely manipulating the controls. Take a job or two where you really learn how to fly in weather and how to use the system. Chief pilots like guys who have been "around the block" a time or two.

'Sled

Sled is right on the money with this one. I did not realize how little I know about flying and controling an airplane until I started flight instructing. I feel pretty qualified to say this as when I worked line service before I got my CFI I also flew in the right seat of jets and a turbo commanders. It was nice and cool but my skills were atrophying <sp> as I did not fly many legs. All the legs were live so I was not allowed to "practice" with pax. Take the time to get 1000 hours or so of dual. You will be a better pilot for it and you will have the respect of your follow pilots within your flight department.

Good luck.
 
Well gee. Our department must be a fluke or has fallin through the cracks. I just looked over our policy yesterday.

While we do have minimum times for non-schooled SIC's, there are no minimum times listed for those with Manufacture Schooled SIC's.

Our "open pilot" states (loosely verbatim) that the SIC have attended an approved Manufacturer's School within the preceeding 12 months, OR have 2000 TT, 1000 ME, 250 MEJ, 100 make/model.

We use Accordia, have $100M liability blah blah.

I was once told the chief pilot is good friends with the underwriter, so maybe this has some bearing on it???

Dunno, guess it all depends on the aircraft and operator.
 
westwind driver said:
Our department must be a fluke or has fallin through the cracks. I just looked over our policy yesterday. I was once told the chief pilot is good friends with the underwriter, so maybe this has some bearing on it? Dunno, guess it all depends on the aircraft and operator.
Nope, it doesn't depend upon the aircraft or operator - totally. It really all depends upon what you are able to negotiate with the insurance company. There are only a relative few companies that underwrite aviation insurance and they can get pretty competitive at times.

Like I mentioned in my earlier post, we made no attempt to negotiate lower minimums. We didn't need to. But, that's kind of like walking into a used car dealing and asking how much for that car over there then writing him out a check. :rolleyes:

If for some reason, we ever started using a lot of contract or part-time pilots in our operation I'd maked sure we'd have an "at chief pilot's descretion" clause in the policy. It's really not that big of a deal in most cases.

'Sled
 
Lead Sled said:
If for some reason, we ever started using a lot of contract or part-time pilots in our operation I'd maked sure we'd have an "at chief pilot's descretion" clause in the policy. It's really not that big of a deal in most cases.

'Sled

Hey Sled, I'd let your S2000 beat my Z4 if you let me fly with your copilot sometime :)

He seems really nice.
 
English said:
Hey Sled, I'd let your S2000 beat my Z4 if you let me fly with your copilot sometime :)

He seems really nice.
I just talked to 'Sleds better looking, snappier dressing cohort. He said he'd be happy to fly with you on any of his 27 days off per month.:p
 

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