Insurance- Instructors acting as commander on Private or group A/C

[orionsbelt]

BEagle can you please elaborate on your comment below

-The FI will decide whether he/she is happy to fly in your aeroplane as Commander without being insured to fly it; do you have passenger liability insurance yet?-

What level of Insurance is required for private Owners /group members to receive training /check rides.
Should the policy directly state that Instructors are covered to as commander for training and or check rides if he is not a part owner / member of group.

In my part of the world we seem to be completely out of touch with this sort of thing!
Thanks
Orion ***

[BEagle]

You should contact AOPA and/or your insurer.

As I understand it, mandatory passenger liability cover is needed with effect from 30 Apr 05.

[shortstripper]

Actually mandatory insurance full stop! came in :{ My little VP, on my little strip is now twice as expensive in fixed costs per year :{

SS

[18greens]

Do insurance policies not automatically cover instructors to fly as PIC.

If they don't, do you need to name the instructor on the policy to get a training flight in your own plane?

[shortstripper]

As a follow on, I did the biennial revalidation today. Our insurance does have a clause to allow a nominated instructor to fly our aeroplane. I'd forgotten this was asked for by us at inception and is built in to allow group check outs in circumstances where our "in-house" instructor is unavailable. The wording in the insurance doc sounds like it's not an uncommon clause.

SS

[homeguard]

You require a 'Hold Harmless' and 'waiver of subrogation' to be certain of being covered by the third party insurance clauses when flying in a private aircraft. Many brokers say simply that the policy states 'any instructor' but i'm informed that the extent of cover is uncertain if you are to rely solely on such a clause and it may not mean that you will be a third party beneficiary to any claim for injury.

Here is such an insert within the policy which will suffice. We require at my club to have such an insert in the policies of all our private owners. As follows;

'Noted and agreed that the coverage heron is extended to include the Insured(s) Legal Liability to ................................ examiners whilst flying in the aircraft insured hereon during the course of their duties. Further noted and agreed to include the ............................. and/or its agents and'or its employees as Addtional Insureds in respect of the liability cover with a Hold Harmless and waiver of subrogation in their favour.'

I have never known an insurer to refuse to include the clause or to make an extra charge. Seems therefore that there is no excuse but to include the clause in the owners policy.

[orionsbelt]

Thanks for your replies.

I put the question to AOPA as BEagle suggested and Martins response is shown below.

'Most policies automatically cover the FI/examiner when conducting training/testing - just ask the owner for a copy of the policy.'

So action points as per homeguard / shortstripper comments

Thanks all

Orion***

[BEagle]

Saw Martin today at Aero Friedrichshafen and he had some good news about insurance policies for FIs. I don't want to say any more at this stage as it is his pigeon....

[Irv]

With the new EU rules coming up in less than a week, does anyone know:

1- If there is a simple table or calculator anywhere which you use to look up the insurance level requirement for a particular mass and number of passenger seats?

2- Does the insurance certificate now say 'complies with EU Regulation 785/2004'

If it's not simple to check, how would an instructor know the aircraft is properly insured to the correct levels?

[Irv]

1- If there is a simple table or calculator anywhere which you use to look up the insurance level requirement for a particular mass and number of passenger seats?

To answer half my own question, the only 'straight talking' reference to "how much per kg" I've been able to find is from Graham Newby on PFA discussion on mandatory insurance (http://www.pfa.org.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000228;p=1) (look just over halfway down the first page)