Insurance agents and companies are in the business of making money and addressing risk. Not the risk in the air, not the risk under canopy but financial risk. Statistically, you're much more likely to be in a car accident than in a parachute accident, even if you're a regular, busy skydiver. You're more likely to die of many causes, than a parachute accident, even for active skydivers who have thousands of jumps.
Insurance companies seek ways to raise premiums, period. Have they paid out on many skydiving deaths? NO. In fact, seldom does insurance pay following a jump death, as it's usually always an exclusion. No, the reason that skydiving is taken into account is that the insurance company uses it as a marker; it's evidence of a dangerous attitude, of a proclivity toward dangerous acts. Even if you've made one tandem jump and have never jumped again, or intend to...you're a skydiver, and you have shown a proclivity toward dangerous behavior.
Is this logical? No. Is it correct? No. Does it have a legitimate psychological basis? No. But it sounds good on paper, and it's a good way to raise rates. Insurance companies are about making money and finding excuses, often very flimsy ones, to avoid paying out...hardly the authority on statistical risk. Putting things in their own terms, using whatever excuse may be had, is in their best interest, and therefore nullifies such as authoritative or unbiased.
Regardless of what insurance companies charge, do you thus submit that because a skydiver might merit a higher insurance premium, killing the skydiver is a legitimate act which should not be punished under criminal law?
Weather skydiving is dangerous or not isn't relevant to the issue of weather killing a jumper with an airplane is a wrongful act. If the pilot is acting recklessly, flying where he should not, at altitude she should not, when warnings are published, the pilot is trained in the activities involved, and the regulations clearly preclude his being there, if a death results from those careless actions, should the pilot not be held accountable?
Insurance companies seek ways to raise premiums, period. Have they paid out on many skydiving deaths? NO. In fact, seldom does insurance pay following a jump death, as it's usually always an exclusion. No, the reason that skydiving is taken into account is that the insurance company uses it as a marker; it's evidence of a dangerous attitude, of a proclivity toward dangerous acts. Even if you've made one tandem jump and have never jumped again, or intend to...you're a skydiver, and you have shown a proclivity toward dangerous behavior.
Is this logical? No. Is it correct? No. Does it have a legitimate psychological basis? No. But it sounds good on paper, and it's a good way to raise rates. Insurance companies are about making money and finding excuses, often very flimsy ones, to avoid paying out...hardly the authority on statistical risk. Putting things in their own terms, using whatever excuse may be had, is in their best interest, and therefore nullifies such as authoritative or unbiased.
Regardless of what insurance companies charge, do you thus submit that because a skydiver might merit a higher insurance premium, killing the skydiver is a legitimate act which should not be punished under criminal law?
Weather skydiving is dangerous or not isn't relevant to the issue of weather killing a jumper with an airplane is a wrongful act. If the pilot is acting recklessly, flying where he should not, at altitude she should not, when warnings are published, the pilot is trained in the activities involved, and the regulations clearly preclude his being there, if a death results from those careless actions, should the pilot not be held accountable?
