Peter wrote:
You just push them out; it improves your glide ratio
It doesn’t! The glide ratio is (ignoring second order effects) independent of the aircraft mass, but of course you can fly slower (and thus descend slower) with lower mass. That’s why high performace gliders have water ballast tanks. With water ballast you can fly faster with the same glide ratio which is a good thing when thermals are strong enough to offset the higher rate of descent.
I knew that actually 
If you throw some passengers out, the glide angle stays the same. You just get more time to think before you hit the ground.
could it be related to the PA46 accident last winter ?
Hmmm, yeah, kneejerk reactions are very possible, although I doubt any aviation insurer is going to become poorer in this case
My premium increased this year too, by 5%.
Hmmm I got 1.4x increase which is ridiculous.
I have the Mooney group insurance which is €1600 for hull and CSL for me and on other pilot. Half thinking of reducing the policy to the legal minimum next year. Having worked in the gambling industry for a time, I don’t like giving money to insurance companies
Here I thought I was getting a raw deal with the mooney rate, I mistakenly thought it might go down after the first year, still overall like everything to do with GA its twice the going rate in europe
What are thoughts on taking out a personal liability, public/employee/employer policy and not bothering with hull and or accident aspects?
I would be amazed if you could get such a policy. It is also illegal in the EU to fly without insurance.
Re hull cover, this is the same as with any “fully comprehensive” (UK term) cover i.e. you don’t need it if you can always afford to replace the item.
Yes in essence that is what I am asking. If one takes out liability only, with no hull replacement and large excess then is that legal? Is there a document anywhere which stipulates what insurance is required to fly an aircraft. Ie you used to get third party only for cars, until the insurance industry cottoned on and made those premiums more expensive in some cases. It is curiosity because I used to insure my boat, premium 600 quid. I got a legal requirement, liability only policy online for 50.00 quid. Obviously if I sail to the med I would increase cover and such, but the difference……….
The Mooney group scheme specifically points out that third party is the ‘legal minimum’. I think it is <€300. Passenger insurance seems like a waste of €600 because most of the time it’s my family. I assume if you come in with a hull claim they’ll do their level best to weasel out of it too, which is probably easy in a system of vague legislation where they can afford the lawyers.
Peter,
Three years ago I used Visicover and I had no claim so I have no knowledge of their service. What did happen was that a year later my previous broker came back with a very similar offer which I accepted but it looks like this year I may be back with Visicover.
I have had a few positive data points and one recent negative one and another negative one from some time ago. Unfortunately not knowing any details one can’t make much sense of these – of either type.
As I wrote above I would expect Visicover to not pay out on some common accidents which Haywards would probably pay out on – simply due to the runway requirements clause which would make a large % of GA flights uninsured. Otherwise, that sort of thing would probably fall under “negligence” which is definitely insured.
