What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Are you inadvertently voiding your insurance policy?

Did you know most Pleasure and Business policies do not cover instruction in your Vans Aircraft if the person receiving instruction is not a "Named Pilot"? This is typically true even if the CFI is a Named Pilot. Always be sure to double check with your broker prior to allowing your friends and loved ones to get instruction in your aircraft.
 
Yep. That is why Transition Training providers have to purchase extra insurance to provide training in their airplane (or self insure, which is something that I did not care to do). That is what ultimately led to my decision to no longer provide Transition Training.
 
So is that true for "all" Instruction to include flight reviews? IOW if I want to receive a flight review in my own aircraft, the CFI has to be a named pilot on my policy and even then I might still void my policy depending on how it's worded?
 
So is that true for "all" Instruction to include flight reviews? IOW if I want to receive a flight review in my own aircraft, the CFI has to be a named pilot on my policy and even then I might still void my policy depending on how it's worded?

You should be a "named pilot" in your own aircraft. I think the OP was talking about allowing a friend to take instruction in your airplane.
 
You should be a "named pilot" in your own aircraft. I think the OP was talking about allowing a friend to take instruction in your airplane.

Of course I am and that's not how I interpreted the OP except in David's case where a CFI is using their own plane for instruction. I took it to mean in all cases hence my question.
 
So is that true for "all" Instruction to include flight reviews? IOW if I want to receive a flight review in my own aircraft, the CFI has to be a named pilot on my policy and even then I might still void my policy depending on how it's worded?

During a BFR the CFI does not necessarily have to be a ?named pilot? as long as you are current and remain PIC. The only time I can think of offhand where there would be a gray area is if; Let say you became incapacitated for some reason and the CFI had to become PIC during the flight (and he did not meet your ?Open Pilot Warranty.?). But this would be a rare and unlikely instance.

In most cases getting a BFR in your aircraft without the CFI being named is perfectly fine.
 
So is that true for "all" Instruction to include flight reviews? IOW if I want to receive a flight review in my own aircraft, the CFI has to be a named pilot on my policy and even then I might still void my policy depending on how it's worded?

Todd,

Like Mel stated, you're covered.

Where I ran into issues was for my IPC recurrent training. While I had the view limiting device on, the CFII is technically the PIC. I was able to add my CFII as a named pilot, but only in the role of providing instruction to me, at no additional expense. He wasn't covered to operate the aircraft as the sole occupant and PIC.

bob
 
Yep. That is why Transition Training providers have to purchase extra insurance to provide training in their airplane (or self insure, which is something that I did not care to do). That is what ultimately led to my decision to no longer provide Transition Training.

Me too.
Cost of extra insurance exceeded income.
 
Todd,

Like Mel stated, you're covered.

Where I ran into issues was for my IPC recurrent training. While I had the view limiting device on, the CFII is technically the PIC.
bob

Where did you get such an idea? You can fly under the hood with a non-instrument rated private pilot as safety pilot. If you are responsible for the safe and legal operation of the airplane, you are PIC. Of course you must be current wrt BFR, and may not enter actual imc unless instrument current.
 
Bob makes good sense, otherwise I won't be able to do my IFR checkride in my own plane. I presume the DPE is going to ask me to wear the foggles for a while. ;)
 
My ADD goes into overtime when people refer to BFR's in the present tense since they have not existed for a couple of years....

It's a flight review. Yes, it is done on a biennial basis, for whatever the reason they changed in the FAR's and is no longer a BFR. Just a plain ole flight review.

Sorry, rant over.
Mark
 
Bob makes good sense, otherwise I won't be able to do my IFR checkride in my own plane. I presume the DPE is going to ask me to wear the foggles for a while. ;)

Per FAA policy and FAR 61.47 a DPE is never to act as The PIC, except by prior arrangement. This even applies to student pilots taking their checkride, 61.47 provides an exception to the 'no passengers' rule.
 
My ADD goes into overtime when people refer to BFR's in the present tense since they have not existed for a couple of years....

It's a flight review. Yes, it is done on a biennial basis, for whatever the reason they changed in the FAR's and is no longer a BFR. Just a plain ole flight review.

Sorry, rant over.
Mark

Yes, I know. But 'FR' doesn't have the same ring as 'BFR'. How about a new movement, 'bFR', so biennial is an adjective, not part of the formal name?
 
Per FAA policy and FAR 61.47 a DPE is never to act as The PIC, except by prior arrangement. This even applies to student pilots taking their checkride, 61.47 provides an exception to the 'no passengers' rule.

Interesting. So on the IFR ride the DPE is basically a safety pilot?

Does that mean the IFR checkride must be done in VMC?
 
Where did you get such an idea? You can fly under the hood with a non-instrument rated private pilot as safety pilot. If you are responsible for the safe and legal operation of the airplane, you are PIC. Of course you must be current wrt BFR, and may not enter actual imc unless instrument current.

Like you said......

may not enter actual imc unless instrument current

I wasn't at the time.
 
Interesting. So on the IFR ride the DPE is basically a safety pilot?

Does that mean the IFR checkride must be done in VMC?

Yes unless the DPE agrees, in advance, to act as PIC for those portions of the flight in IMC. That's because until you pass the check ride and earn the rating, you can't act as PIC in IMC.
 
A hypothetical:

A good and generous friend who owns an RV of a type for which I require transition training - for insurance coverage prior to first flight in my own plane - offers to familiarize me with the aircraft over several hours of dual instruction time under the usual, allowable noncommercial cost sharing arrangements of pax (me) paying half the fuel bill, nothing more. He is a CFI. No special arrangements have been made with his insurance carrier to have anyone listed as a named pilot besides himself, nor for commercial instruction in his aircraft. We fly together for the required, enjoyable hours.

Conclusion A: all goes well, and we sit down after and he fills out my logbook with the appropriate notations for a familiarization flight/PIC time (for me) in make & model.

Conclusion B: a mishap occurs, he was the PIC, he had a passenger in the front seat, "(you heard it hit the hull), and I... was never here..." /James Earl Jones/
"Who, us? We were just up sight seeing in this wonderful aircraft and he let me feel the controls out a bit." No logbook entry occurs, transition training experience requirement is not satisfied that day. I pay him my share of the gas money. Insurance is in force as usual. Or is it? Problems with this scenario? It probably takes place all the time.

-Stormy
 
Bill,
You're asking what happens if you lie. I can only speculate that it depends on how the insurance company wants to spend its money. Possible answers:
Pay him and forget about it.
Pay him but jack up his rate at renewal. Tell other insurance companies why (there are only a few) so no one will insure him.
Hire investigators to try to discredit your story.
Look at their records to see if he has done transition training before. If so forward the info to the FAA if he does not have a LODA. If he does, use that against him.
Refuse coverage, using your own words, that this was a sightseeing flight for hire (the 'share the expenses' rule only applies when the flight was incidental transportation, e.g, you were going somewhere. Otherwise the commercial FARs apply).
etc.
 
Like you said......

may not enter actual imc unless instrument current

I wasn't at the time.

Okay, so the issue was not wearing a hood, but rather operating in actual IMC.
This is a real issue for cfii's. The owner's airplane is usually covered via the open pilot clause but under such clauses the insurance company reserves the right to sue the cfii. Some policies specifically will cover instructors, some do not. Just another risk to bear for the privilge of instructing.
 
good stuff

Insurance companies are not in business to protect you. Period. They exist for profit. Discuss what you want to do ahead of time and then send a fax to re-cap. If someone is killed, they will attempt to invalidate a claim. If it is just bent metal.. they usually just write a check. We work all our lives to save up a bit and also to fly a bit. The outcome of a crash can be much worse if you have not dotted your i's. Glad this thread came up, because it may save someone grief. Thanks to the OP.
 
Okay, so the issue was not wearing a hood, but rather operating in actual IMC.
This is a real issue for cfii's. The owner's airplane is usually covered via the open pilot clause but under such clauses the insurance company reserves the right to sue the cfii. Some policies specifically will cover instructors, some do not. Just another risk to bear for the privilge of instructing.

My open pilot clause states only named pilots are covered. I don't have a generic open pilot clause. I suspect that restriction is assisting in keeping premiums reasonable.

Since they are now a named pilot, it eliminates the subrogation issue from the cfii.

I don't want to derail this thread, but then the next level of conversation for the cfii that decides to fly in imc, is what experience do they have. Most of our RV-10s have technically advanced panels in which many cfii's have never had the opportunity to fly with. How much training do you have to provide the cfii before they are comfortable taking your aircraft into imc?

In my case, at the time, I was fairly new to my avionics and hadn't flown in imc in over ten years. We spent quite a bit of time working through the operational aspects of the avionics until we were both comfortable. Most local cfii's that I talked with were afraid of experiments or EFIS manufactures that they weren't familiar with. In some regards, I understand their concerns. I was fortunate to find a cfii that was a pilot for a local corporation and had built a sonex. So he wasn't afraid of experimentals or learning new technology. He was a solid pilot and cfii and had the mindset that we would both learn as we go and document the procedures. Once he was comfortable and up to speed, then we tackled imc.
 
My gut tells me it's more nuanced than that -

But I'd be the first to admit I don't know all the pertinent variables. Let me try again, in a less tongue-in-cheek way:

I can imagine a cross country trip where two pilots share stick time in a plane owned by only one of them. At the conclusion of said trip, owner-CFI-pilot says to non-owner pilot-passenger, "You know what? You were the sole manipulator of the controls there for X.X hours. You could log that as PIC time, now that we know there is no possible way the flight we just concluded has resulted in an incident or any longer poses any exposure to the insurance carrier. You could maybe use those logged hours towards satisfying the currency/recency requirements for insuring your own first flight in your own RV-xxx."

How does that sound? I would submit that the risk to the insurer is absolutely not increased one iota by this action, which could be the aftermath of any successfully completed cross country in a private plane where two rated persons both touched the controls. And I doubt the insurance policy typically requires non-owners to be listed as named pilots if they are right-seat pax. Correct me if I'm wrong, here. I really want to understand the details. (And thanks for your reply, Bob. You may be spot-on, to my minor consternation).

Bill,
You're asking what happens if you lie. I can only speculate that it depends on how the insurance company wants to spend its money. Possible answers:
Pay him and forget about it.
Pay him but jack up his rate at renewal. Tell other insurance companies why (there are only a few) so no one will insure him.
Hire investigators to try to discredit your story.
Look at their records to see if he has done transition training before. If so forward the info to the FAA if he does not have a LODA. If he does, use that against him.
Refuse coverage, using your own words, that this was a sightseeing flight for hire (the 'share the expenses' rule only applies when the flight was incidental transportation, e.g, you were going somewhere. Otherwise the commercial FARs apply).
etc.
 
Instruction given is required to be logged. How do you do that? I log it in my own personal logbook, not a separate instruction given book. If in your regular logbook and at a later date you have an incident the insurance company will audit your books. At this time they will see a propensity to instruct in your experimental. Could open an investigation to see if you were instructing at the time of the incident.

Mark

But I'd be the first to admit I don't know all the pertinent variables. Let me try again, in a less tongue-in-cheek way:

I can imagine a cross country trip where two pilots share stick time in a plane owned by only one of them. At the conclusion of said trip, owner-CFI-pilot says to non-owner pilot-passenger, "You know what? You were the sole manipulator of the controls there for X.X hours. You could log that as PIC time, now that we know there is no possible way the flight we just concluded has resulted in an incident or any longer poses any exposure to the insurance carrier. You could maybe use those logged hours towards satisfying the currency/recency requirements for insuring your own first flight in your own RV-xxx."

How does that sound? I would submit that the risk to the insurer is absolutely not increased one iota by this action, which could be the aftermath of any successfully completed cross country in a private plane where two rated persons both touched the controls. And I doubt the insurance policy typically requires non-owners to be listed as named pilots if they are right-seat pax. Correct me if I'm wrong, here. I really want to understand the details. (And thanks for your reply, Bob. You may be spot-on, to my minor consternation).
 
Last edited:
Crossing that bridge when I come to it

The really pertinent question for me (and the reason this thread caught my attention at all) turns around the underwriting requirements for first flight coverage in a new homebuilt. I did this decades ago with Mike Segar. He no doubt has the LODA for RV transition training. I was wondering if there is an actual requirement for instruction vice experience in make and model. Clearly, the instructional angle is fraught with technical perils and nit-picks. I would think the stick time approach would not be similarly complicated - but then again, mere hours in m/m may be less than what the underwriter will want when the time comes to write a policy.

My original hypothetical did involve a sign-off by someone with CFI credentials willing to use them in a logbook, but now I'm wondering if something unofficial (right seat experience) will be of any use in getting that first-flight coverage one day.

-Stormy
 
Last edited:
Bob
I agree that it's hard to find a cfi familiar with your EAB and your avionics. I advocate a two-pronged approach. First, sit in your plane on the ground, with aux power, playing with the avionics, for many hours. Not minutes. It can be helpful to have a knowledgeable person (need not be a cfi) help out, pose scenarios, etc. Once you are comfortable with the button pushing, call up the AI and HSI displays. That should look familiar to most cfii's. Explain the basics of the panel to the cfi, and go fly. Not perfect, but the last place you want to try to learn the button pushing is in the air.

Bill, as a previous poster said, insurance companies are in business to make money, and they do that by controlling risk. Yes, letting someone else fly in cruise is low risk. But not zero (speculation is that years ago a Vans demonstrater was lost in flight after the 'passenger' pulled hard and exceeded the wing's limits). Furthermore, would an insurance company 'count' that type of experience, with no landings? I sort of doubt it. OTOH, if, say, you choose to fly phase one uninsured, then apply for insurance, you will most likely not be required to get any dual. But even if you are, at that point, it can be legally done in your airplane so it's not relevant to this discussion. But what is relevant is that getting pre-first flight training for an EAB, in a legal and financially safe (no question about insurance) way, remains a rather expensive proposition.
 
(speculation is that years ago a Vans demonstrater was lost in flight after the 'passenger' pulled hard and exceeded the wing's limits).

Must have been one helluva pull, but I can see it happening. My experience...first time taking up a fellow pilot (who does aerobatics) for an intro to the plane. Gave him the stick and said "show me a steep turn to the left", expecting a 60 degree bank. Nope...aerobatic style he did "Roll. Stop. Pull. Stop." At about a 90 degree bank angle, and *boom* we were at 4+ g's. Fortunately, we were light and well within utility category limits, but still...we had a little "conversation" about it, and ever after that, when we fly, we make sure during preflight that we discuss our weight/balance, category limits, and ensure the aircraft is configured properly if we're doing aerobatics (everything secured or removed, etc.).

It was...interesting.
 
Can I ask a general question about aviation insurance? What limits do most folks have on there policy? Mine is shown below. I will accept no hull coverage in order to get a decent premium. Thanks in advance...

--
14afktc.png
 
Jim,
You have slightly less coverage than most, Standard is $1 million liability coverage outside the airplane; $100K per passenger.

This is pretty much all that's available, although some are offering $200K per passenger.

This is, imho, almost like having no insurance, if you are sued today. But short of going to Loyds of London and paying a fortune, that's all there is.
 
What limits do most folks have on there policy?

In Canadian dollars - $2,000,000 combined single limit (includes property damage, third party and passenger bodily injury). Also includes liability associated with my hangar. Cost is $620/year. Purchased through Canadian Owners and Pilots Association.
 
Can I ask a general question about aviation insurance? What limits do most folks have on there policy? Mine is shown below. I will accept no hull coverage in order to get a decent premium. Thanks in advance...

--
14afktc.png
Hi Jim,

Bob is correct that $1,000,000 Per Occurrence and $100,000 Per Passenger are the standard liability limits for experimental aircraft. However, recently most markets have started to offer higher passengers limits as long as all named pilots have make and model time. Some companies offer slightly more competitive (affordable) rates than others.
 
Back
Top