Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By MikeW
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1908874
My LAA insurance last year had £2M combined single limit with no sublimit on passenger liability.
In my renewal quote just received, this has been changed to a sublimit of 250,000SDR per passenger which I think currently corresponds to just over £250k. Despite this the premium has gone up a bit.
As my Europa can only take one passenger I regard this as a serious degradation of cover. I think that if I ever incurred a large claim it would more probably be from a passenger rather than 3rd party person Injury or property damage.
When I looked at quotes a couple of years ago, only one broker offered passenger cover lower than the 3rd party limit and when I said no, I want full CSL Inc passenger, his quote went up £200 and went from cheapest to dearest.
So I think this is a very serious change and greatly affects the desirability and value of the LAA scheme. I'm contacting the LAA about it, but I wondered what others think of this and whether the same is coming up from other insurers?
By josher
#1908983
we always get three quotes when renewing. We have carried £5M third party/passenger cover for a couple of years. This year two quotes came back with the £5M third party/250K passenger cover. When queried with one we were told we could get the £5M passenger cover for extra premium. I think its just a way of giving a cheaper quote but its easy to miss the lower passenger cover which has been said is totally inadequate. We went with insurer who gave us the quote we asked for.

Josher
By MikeW
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1909052
That's interesting. It seems to be a spreading trick then!
So far I've got alternative on line quotes from Visicover and Flycovered. If I'm reading the terms correctly they are both still offering passenger cover up to the full CSL amount. However Visicover is about 20% dearer and Flycovered is about 40% dearer than the LAA scheme (in which I take the self repair discount, 20% I think.)
#1909152
We've raised this as an urgent matter with Air Courtage as this level of cover is clearly inadequate. it results from a restriction generated by their underwriter, and Air Courtage are in discussions to get this limit raised or to seek another underwriter.

Must stress that under FCA rules the LAA does not directly recommend or broker any insurances. Air Courtage have though developed specific packages that, until now, have matched LAA users.
riverrock, MikeW, ChampChump and 1 others liked this
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By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1909240
We used Flycovered last year as they offered insurance by the day as well as full years cover. However this year their premium shot up by £300 even with a 5% NCD. So went back to Traffords, who, up until last year, I had always been insured with (25yrs) and they were nearly £500 less expensive. I also get Crown indemnity, cover for car airside, personal belongings, trespass cover and betterment - where if you stoof in the engine you get full cover and not cover based on the life expectancy of the engine and a proportion thereof. The pax is also covered to £3.5M

So Traffords got back my business.
ronparry liked this
#1909244
This is quite simple, it’s a repercussion of BREXIT in that a large number re-insurers have a remit or “risk bucket” for EU countries. Now that we’re not in the EU, UK insurers have to take what they're given – which is a lower re-insurance coverage. The two best player for specialist activities cover IHI BUPA and Dog Tag both stopped serving the UK from last year.

Add to this that Brits are normally seen as mugs for pricing (probably with the only exception being a pint of milk) and you’ve compounded the problem.

My specialist travel/sports cover went from £400 to £560; the worst quote was £1240.

Here’s one closer to home; anyone sent a headset to Bose for repair this year? Previously, you could deal directly with The Netherlands. Now you speak to Bose UK (someone in the Philippines on the phone) to have your headset sent to a central UK depot, then sent to Netherlands, then back to this UK depot before being shipped to you. If you send directly for repair, you now get stung for between £200-£300 duty.

We definitely know how to f*** things up in the UK.
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By Sooty25
#1909270
RisePilot wrote:

>
> Here’s one closer to home; anyone sent a headset to Bose for repair this
> year? Previously, you could deal directly with The Netherlands. Now you
> speak to Bose UK (someone in the Philippines on the phone) to have your
> headset sent to a central UK depot, then sent to Netherlands, then back to
> this UK depot before being shipped to you. If you send directly for
> repair, you now get stung for between £200-£300 duty.
>
> We definitely know how to f*** things up in the UK.

You don't get charged "duty", but you would be charged VAT, but on the cost of the repair only. Sounds like Bose are not capable of filling in a customs declaration form. It's not difficult. Oh, and you would have paid the VAT pre- brexit as well, just at a different point.

Bose do not manufacture within EU, so all product will have passed through customs to get to the Bose base in Netherlands. That demonstrates Bose have been dealing with imports and exports outside the EU prior to Brexit. To suddenly be incapable of dealing with one particular third country suggests either incompetence or bias.

I'd suggest out of warranty repairs are just sent to the States.
Flying_john liked this
#1909278
Maybe it's just me but I have to say that for the past three or 4years I have really tried and completely failed to get satisfactory quotes from the LAA Air Courtage scheme.
Whilst the initial quote usually seems quite good, when you delve deeper into the given quote and start asking questions about certain aspects of the actual cover quoted for the answers received back always seem a bit dubious to my mind compared to other insurance company quotes, just never quite straightforward or open. Alternatively If you ask for a word for word comparable cover with other insurance companies the quote then shoots up to be totally uncompetitive! :(
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By Sooty25
#1909291
TBH, I dismissed the LAA Air Courtage scheme purely because it is not UK based. In the event of a dispute, pursuing an insurance company in the UK would be enough hassle, pursuing one in France would just be a non-starter.

Their legal notice pretty much sums it up for me.

https://www.air-assurances.uk/legal-notice

Stephen Slater , as an LAA member, I do appreciate the effort the LAA went to trying to set this scheme up, and I genuinely would have tried to support a scheme that probably gives the LAA a bung for its efforts, but an overseas insurer will one day end in tears. Sorry.
By Boxkite
#1909306
It was only the repair-it-yourself discount that made their offer competitive for me. Problem with that is that there was no upper limit - if you trash half of the aircraft you will not get any payout for labour - not worth the risk for £300 discount.
#1909310
I too was not at all happy about their DIY repair scheme idea. Amongst other things I could not get a clear answer from them what recovery to home base for DIY repair was included.
I have asked this question repeatedly of them and all I get is 'it depends' on the distance involved which I am afraid is just not good enough. When you push the question what 'It depends' means in terms of mileage/distance/transportation etc it all gets rather vague and the answer from them is well if you are say halfway across France it would be to a suitable base?...not home base, just a suitable base whatever that is!!....It is just all too vague for me. Imagine attempting to do a say DIY wing/undercarriage off or engine rebuild repair at a strange airfield hundreds of miles away from home base!

Their DIY scheme just has not been thought out properly IMHO and for just a few hundred cheaper is just not a realistic option!
By MikeW
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1909480
Seconding Flying_john, have now got quite a competitive offer from Traffords, with confirmation that the passenger cover does not have a reduced limit. I used to use them, looks like they may get me back!
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By Boxkite
#1910366
I just noticed that a quote from Traffords last year said this:

[b]Combined Single Limit Liability to Third Parties & Passengers :
GBP 1,750,000
each Accident[/b]

Is this a way of hiding a low passenger liability limit?