Home insurance and homebuilts

Hi folks

Don't let the title fool you, this is actually aviation related. And second, this *may* only apply to us in Canada, but I'm sure regardless of where you are this may apply.

We are just finishing building a hangar at our house and my wife called our insurance company (The Personal) to get the building added to the insurance. When they discovered that I am building an airplane at home, they promptly cancelled our insurance as of 16 November. They said we need commercial insurance.

Bull.

No amount of wheedling or cajoling would make them leave us with coverage.

Have any of you run into this kind of thing before? Have you even told your insurance company that you are building an airplane at home (for those of you that are?)

Thanks in advance

Sounds like a FSCO complaint is in order. The broker or agent is probably unable to grasp the concept of building aircraft for fun and assumes your doing it for profit. How would the risk profile for the insurer be different than someone who is rebuilding hot rods in their garage?

Here's the process for the complaint:
https://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/en/insurance/complaints/Pages/default.aspx

No, but here in the U.S. it is standard for homeowners policies that cover personal property to have a written exclusion that it does not include airplanes or airplane parts.

That is the reason for purchasing separate build / in process coverage from aircraft underwriters.

To Scott's point, C-PLAN insurance offered in Canada is available for "work in progress" activities, and includes hangar liability. If you're working on the project airplane in your hangar, you've at least got liability coverage as well as coverage for loss of the project itself. That leaves you needing coverage on the loss of the hangar, which likewise can be obtained through the same insurer.

Maybe best to have the house and hangar insured by different companies, especially if "The Personal" seems so impersonal about insurance of anything to do with an airplane.

The funny thing is, we said that the aircraft would have separate insurance, and that the building activities would be in the hangar. The moron at the insurance company insisted strongly that any aircraft building was obviously a commercial activity and that he was cancelling ALL of our property insurance (house and contents) because of it. No appeals.

When my wife re-enters from low earth orbit and calms down a bit, I think she is going to call them back but insist on speaking to someone with an IQ.

cgroves said:

Sounds like a FSCO complaint is in order. The broker or agent is probably unable to grasp the concept of building aircraft for fun and assumes your doing it for profit. How would the risk profile for the insurer be different than someone who is rebuilding hot rods in their garage?

Here's the process for the complaint:
https://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/en/insurance/complaints/Pages/default.aspx

Click to expand...

Excellent! Thanks for this. We'll check it out.

rvbuilder2002 said:

No, but here in the U.S. it is standard for homeowners policies that cover personal property to have a written exclusion that it does not include airplanes or airplane parts.

That is the reason for purchasing separate build / in process coverage from aircraft underwriters.

Click to expand...

True on the "airplanes or airplane parts" but my hangar (on the same property as my house) is covered by my homeowners policy as a declared value outbuilding.

The contents would be covered with the same percentage of the building's value as the house, but that is where the "airplanes or airplane parts" exclusion would come in, and aircraft stuff inside the hangar would not be covered.

az_gila said:

True on the "airplanes or airplane parts" but my hangar (on the same property as my house) is covered by my homeowners policy as a declared value outbuilding.

The contents would be covered with the same percentage of the building's value as the house, but that is where the "airplanes or airplane parts" exclusion would come in, and aircraft stuff inside the hangar would not be covered.

Click to expand...

Same situation as me.... My home hangar is also considered an outbuilding on my homeowners ins. so the building and contents are fully insured except for airplanes or airplane parts. Some people aren't aware of the (common) exclusion which is why I mentioned it.