This article concerns our industry's activity over the past several months. "It's The Economy." Thanks to our politicians and the media, this overworked phrase has become somewhat annoying. Annoying as it is, it does seem to describe the current tone of the general aviation activity that my staff is seeing. As the economy improves, our phones have started to ring with questions about buying and trading aircraft. Business is picking up in general aviation and people are buying and selling airplanes again.We are having numerous first-time aircraft buyers call for insurance quotations. These aircraft range from small pleasure aircraft to professionally flown turboprops and jets for corporate as well as commercial uses. In addition, we are receiving many calls from current clients and friends who have owned aircraft for years and are now considering moving up to something a little faster and bigger and more complex. Single-engine piston-aircraft owners are buying multi-engine pistons; the multi-engine piston owners are moving into the turboprops; and the turboprop owners are moving into newer and faster turboprops or jet aircraft.This evolution, although exciting, places a bit of stress on everyone -- from pilot to underwriter -- to decide the safest way to qualify these transitioning pilots in their new aircraft. The general aviation insurance market continues to be very small and restrictive. It is referred to as a "hard market" and it is just that. Insurance premiums are consistently firm, although not on a significant increase as during recent years. High or even adequate limits of liability are difficult and expensive to obtain. We can truly term it a "seller's market." With this in mind, you can see that care must be taken in positioning the transitioning pilot for his next challenge: insuring his new aircraft.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/ownership/insuring-the-transitioning-pilot