www.PSFmagazine.com | March-April 2019 | 33 32 | March-April 2019 | Powered Sport Flying Insuring That Your Insurance Sticks Around A lot has happened since I last wrote this column! The biggest thing is that the United States Ultralight Association (usua) Board of Directors received notice that the company that carries our thirdparty insurance program lost the support of their underwriter. That means that we are scrambling with very short notice to cover the members who seek insurance. That in turn means that I have been given the opportunity to learn a lot more about insurance than I ever wanted to learn. Let me share… First, a little context. usua is the oldest ultralight organization in the country. And one of the big benefits for members has been the ability to participate in our $1M third-party liability insurance. Third-party insurance is what some airports and event organizers require from pilots wanting to hangar at their airports or fly at their events. It simply covers pilots who may accidentally harm someone else or their property. It doesn’t cover the aircraft itself or those flying in it, but it does cover nearly everything else. Normally this insurance would be difficult to acquire for ultralights and some light experimental aircraft. And I’ve been around long enough to see a number of insurance programs come and go. The reasons that they come and go are varied. They come because someone guesses there is a need in the market and that the program will be profitable. The someones who make the guesses are usually organizations and insurance brokers. In specialty markets (and there are a lot of them!), there is often little liability history to go by. But someone makes the pitch, and an underwriter chooses to go with (or often not go with) the proposed program. Programs normally go away when either the losses are too high or the participation is too low. Even if there was a killer program for aardvark herders, if not enough aardvark herders actually sign up for insurance, the program fades away. That means that the few aardvark herders who do want insurance are out of luck. Sometimes an insurance program is just too much trouble to administer. If the premiums are too low and the effort to write those policies is too high, insurance providers head towards greener fields. So it turns out that most programs don’t have a long shelf life. I knew from direct observation that was true with ultralight aviation, but I didn’t realize that the phenomena were repeated in many sports, industries, and business endeavors. It turns out that we aren’t so special after all. Or maybe we are special! The life span of many programs is only two or three years. The usua insurance program lasted a couple of decades! That is a direct function of the safe and responsible operation of ultralights and light aircraft by our members. That is something to be proud of. So why did the insurance program go away? Was there a big claim? Was there a decline in people seeking insurance? Was it something else? I would have to go with ‘something else’ although exactly what that something else is seems a little opaque to me. There was no big claim. No decline in people participating in the program. In fact, it seems that the program was actually growing in popularity. I have guesses, and none of those guesses have to do with usua membership. The usua Board of Directors (volunteers, I should add!) is not giving up on the issue. The good news is that most of the people with insurance will continue to be covered until their individual policies expire at their normal dates. Those wanting or needing to renew are the ones in a bind right now. Fortunately, some insurance companies have been showing an interest in covering usua members. I can’t whisper any names right now, but the companies are real, and the people behind the companies understand both the urgency and the opportunity to work with usua to set up a replacement program. Hopefully my next column will be announcing a solution, but obviously I can make no promises. Meanwhile, if you are in the insurance business or know someone in the insurance business, please let them know that we are actively seeking a partnership that works for the insurer, their underwriter, usua members, and the organization itself. That may sound like a tall order, but we had exactly that for two decades. With some work and a little luck, hopefully usua will end up in a better place than where we started.
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