Insurance Tips Regarding Phase One and Flight Testing Period

[LRingeisen]

You’ve completed building your aircraft—congratulations! Now comes the exciting part, but before you take to the skies, ensure you have proper insurance coverage. Depending on your flight hours, the insurance company may require you to complete dual training. While it might seem logical to complete this training in your newly built plane, there’s an important restriction: dual training cannot be conducted in your aircraft during Phase One or the flight testing period.

The flight testing period is specifically designed for aircraft testing, not pilot training. This phase is essential to verify the safety and performance of your aircraft. To fulfill your training requirements, you’ll need to complete your training in another aircraft of the same make and model. This approach ensures both compliance and safety as you prepare to enjoy flying your new plane.

P.S. We’re excited to see everyone at Oshkosh this year! New this year, we have an exhibitor’s tent on the show grounds. Stop by and see us in Tent #459 on Waukau Avenue during the show!

 

[BobTurner]

Leah’s post above is right-on. But she did not mention a key issue. Assuming the owner of the ‘other’ same make and model airplane expects compensation for letting you use his EAB, this is expressly illegal. But a waiver (“LODA”) can be obtained with a little paperwork. The real issue is insurance for the owner of the other plane. Standard policies do not cover renting the plane to others, and the cost of a policy that includes ‘renting to others’ is pretty high - steep enough that many cfi-owners have dropped out of offering transition training (I’m one of them). I’m a bit surprised that one of the big insurers hasn’t tried to exploit this to drum up new business by offering new customers a deal along these lines: ‘If you choose to accept our offer, we will also cover you and the aircraft owner during transition training with CFI Bob or Dan or …, in their LODA approved airplanes, since we already insure their aircraft, too.’ Perhaps the market is just too small to justify the cost of anything unique.

Full disclosure: I am a satisfied Gallagher client.

 

[Ironflight]

Leah’s post above is right-on. But she did not mention a key issue. Assuming the owner of the ‘other’ same make and model airplane expects compensation for letting you use his EAB, this is expressly illegal. But a waiver (“LODA”) can be obtained with a little paperwork. The real issue is insurance for the owner of the other plane. Standard policies do not cover renting the plane to others, and the cost of a policy that includes ‘renting to others’ is pretty high - steep enough that many cfi-owners have dropped out of offering transition training (I’m one of them). I’m a bit surprised that one of the big insurers hasn’t tried to exploit this to drum up new business by offering new customers a deal along these lines: ‘If you choose to accept our offer, we will also cover you and the aircraft owner during transition training with CFI Bob or Dan or …, in their LODA approved airplanes, since we already insure their aircraft, too.’ Perhaps the market is just too small to justify the cost of anything unique.

Full disclosure: I am a satisfied Gallagher client.

Bob - as a member of the EAA Safety Committee and part of a sub-committee looking at Transition Training, the insurance problem is one of the tough nuts that we are trying to crack. Unfortunately, the underwriters (as opposed to the brokers) are very opaque and hard to reach on the topic. But….we’re working on it…