Rental Insurance prices going way up...

[mudkow60]

I was shocked to learn that one of the places I rent aircraft from recently raised their price per hour for their rental aircraft. The price is going up 20 bucks per hour. They say it is due to an increase in insurance prices. I am not willing to pay that much to rent a bug smasher, and will probably not be renting from them much more.

Has anyone heard of this happening, and is there anything the FAA, AOPA, or anyone else that promotes General Aviation can do to stop it?

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

This would be a great cause for Bruce to get involved with....

Somewhat seriously, have never heard of a $20 increase. What were you paying before? Also, many FBO's have insurance but it only covers them. So if a person prangs a rental the insurance company pays the FBO but then the insurance may go after the person who pranged the plane. Most FBO's will say they have insurance but it may not cover the person renting it.
AOPA, et.al. offer renters insurance that covers the pilot, passengers, property and plane. Be prepared to pay at least $400 per year for "basic" coverage.
Some flying clubs can be very competitive, if not cheaper, than a FBO. The club I belong to charges $56-$63 (based on tach time) an hour for a C-172 which are in decent shape and have decent equipment (however, the afterburners never seem to work in them). Dues are $35 per month which primarily goes for insurance in which all members are covered for pilot, passenger, property, and plane. The FBO's in Orlando area are around $75-$80 bucks an hour (based on hobbs) for similar equipment.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[mudkow60]

The insurance increase is across the board, not just for ME! The price for a Tomahawk went from $58/hr to $78/hr. I can't stomach that.

 

[bugchaser]

The story is that the insurance costs have risen sharply recently. I have a '76 172 that I use for flight insrtruction and my insurance is now over $6000 per year. At 200 hrs/yr, that works out to $30 bucks just for the insurance. I am having to charge $75/hr and trust me, it is a losing deal. If this continues, general aviation as we know it is over. It is now just about impossible for a young kid to learn to fly unless he/she has lots of financial backing. In many areas there are no airplanes to rent for any cost. As we lose this segment of aviation, all will suffer. Sorry to rant but this topic really gets me going.

 

[tinman]

bugchaser has it right. My 1975 172 is over $6000 a year for full coverage. It's pretty hard to make any money renting unless you charge an arm and a leg, or else rent it a 1000 hrs a year. You can get renters insurance for about $250 a year for Private pilot's and my CFI insurance is about $350 a year.
On a side note, I am watching the news as I sit and type. They were saying here in Utah that the liability insurance for O.B. doctors has gone up 189% during the last 10 years. Crazy!

 

[flywithastick]

Thank a lawyer.

Oh - that's right - they're making things safer for us all! Must just be the greedy insurance companies... But, with all that money, you'd think other greedy insurance companies would want in on the action. Not more than 3 or 4 big underwriters out there writing GA policies, AFAIK. Guess it just may be the lawyers after all...

 

[VFR on Top]

It's insurance premiums that have risen sharply; insurance costs haven't changed a bit...but the fact that everyone now thinks of an airplane as a weapon of terror is justification enough to hike premiums on the off chance that someone, somewhere, might maybe possibly fly a thousand Cessnas simultaneously into the Sears tower and bring it down. As we saw with the student pilot in Fla. who snuffed himself with a C-152, a single light aircraft is a mere annoyance on the potential-for-destruction continuum.

The alternatives are not pretty. The insurance companies WILL kill off general aviation in the U.S. if they're allowed to, which for the air transportation industry will mean a return to the military as a source of pilots, or airline-sponsored ab initio programs like everywhere else in the world. Somebody needs to inform the traveling public (by way of their elected representatives in congress) of who will ultimately pay for that (whichever alternative it is).

On the bright side, the inevitability of such a dramatic reduction in the supply of pilots would be a godsend for pilot compensation and would likely be the ONLY way out of the z-scale quagmire the industry's committed to at this point.

 

[Foobar]

Right on VFR...

I predict there will be a pilot shortage in the next 20 years. Not due to retirements or expansion, but due to the fact that ratings will become so expensive nobody does it.

Starting from 0 hours at our FBO, a pilot will need about 30K to get every rating. I'm sure the big schools are even more.

What happens when those numbers cross 100K for all the ratings. At the rate prices have been going up thats where we will be in five years.

If you are looking for a job cross your fingers. When general aviation training dies it will be good for the job market.

Obviously there are some down sides to that as well, this was just in interesting point.

 

[flywithastick]

On the bright side, the inevitability of such a dramatic reduction in the supply of pilots would be a godsend for pilot compensation and would likely be the ONLY way out of the z-scale quagmire the industry's committed to at this point.

It's not only about loosing a source of pilots or training, it about loosing GA itself. GA is not just a means for gaining a job - it is the foundation of civillian aviation. It's part of the very foundation of free transportation in the United States. I agree with your comments generally, but I also hear a "bus driver" aviator somewhere in there as well.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Right on VFR...

I predict there will be a pilot shortage in the next 20 years. Not due to retirements or expansion, but due to the fact that ratings will become so expensive nobody does it.

Sorry to be straying from the original topic of insurance, but I think that in 20 years there is a likelihood of going to one person cockpits so while it may be too costly for some to get the training there will also be less jobs. Honeywell, et.al. will figure out a way to sequence and to accommodate any deviatons due to weather, etc. If we keep shipping all of our jobs overseas there won't be any people in the US to haul around anyway. Hope I'm wrong but the Jetsons may be here sooner than expected!

Getting back to cost of insurance. $6K is the figure our club uses for the C172's. If rental rates continue to go up may be "cheaper" to buy an airplane yourself or at the very least partner with others.