When I began my aircraft ownership in 1988, I started with a million-dollar “smooth” policy (for a number of reasons). This means that there are no per-seat sublimits. The most common (and least expensive) policies have payout limits of $100,000 per seat. Not much liability protection in this day and age, unless you simply have zero assets (making you or your heirs an unattractive legal target). Not that I have a lot, but I’d hate to leave Paula and the SLB with nothing, if something untoward were to happen.I have had a perfect, claim-free and incident-free, flight history so far (knock-knock), and have 1,500 hours plus, time in type. Premiums for no-sublimits policies (and all policies) began escalating maybe five years ago. In 2004, for the 2004-2005 policy year, my long term insurer (from Day 1), USAIG, apparently decided I was no longer a good risk despite my 16 year history with them, and jacked my renewal premium to $2,400. I was essentially forced to switch to the sublimits policy AOPA offered, for $1,411. That was about $400 below my 2003 tab for the smooth policy, and $1,000 below the USAIG quote for 2004-2005.
My quotes for the 2005-2006 policy year, from Norris, were $1,503 for the smooth policy, and $1,258 for the sublimits policy. They actually found someone who wants my business (another A+ rated insurer). I am purchasing the smooth policy for the $1,503, which is many hundreds of dollars less than I last paid for that type of policy back in 2003. Had I chosen the more typical policy, I would be paying $153 less than I paid AOPA in 2004.
UPDATED 07/15/2005: My AOPA 2004-2005 premium was $1,411, for the sub-limits policy. The AOPA 2005-2006 sub-limits quote came back at $1,380. While lower than the previous year’s premium, this was still $122 higher than the quote from the Norris Hibbler agency.
I am very glad to once again afford the much better “smooth” policy, thanks to the efforts of Norris’ group, particularly Vivienne. The contact efforts of his group were very thorough, overcoming our frequent travels. AOPA mailed me a form, that I just found in held mail in Jax a week ago; no phone follow-up at all. Vivienne made it very easy to accumulate the needed data in order to obtain quotes. At any rate, the Hibbler agency certainly has my business now, and I’m confident it will prove to be a beneficial relationship.