Insurance... who do I go thru?

KDOG

Gold Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2004
Messages
652
Location
Bridgeton, NJ
Avemco? Can anyone guess what the insurance is on an ultralight gyro like the Gyrobee? I doubt my State Farm insurance will cover me flying that thing....
 
Kevin, from my and other's experience in this, you probably won't find insurance for your gyro anywhere, including other countries. Falcon is somewhat insuring gyros, RAFs and Sparrowhawks and I believe some Sport Copters. I don't know of anyone else supplying it. If you do get it, be prepared for outlandish premiums. I pay $3,000 per year, but $900 of that is for the second seat, and only $100,000 liability at that. The main liability is only $500,000, instead of the 1M that I used to be able to afford.
 
:eek: WHAT!?! :eek: Thats insane. I guess I just will be flying without insurance. All I need is some basic liability....Good grief. How do they expect working slobs to afford insurance? I'm in New Jersey which is the worst when it comes to insurance of any sort. I'd hate to see what my life insurance would charge me to get covered...

Even in a one seater?
 
This is what I sent out to a couple of brokers just yesterday and their replies that I just read

Do you insure gyroplanes? I am looking to purchase a kit and would like to know what coverage is available and what the costs are
#1
No sir,
I deal with all of the Domestic aircraft insurers and they all decline to offer coverage for gyroplanes. Too much risk/ exposure for their taste.
"I can only recommend that if there is a national Gyroplane organization to contact them about insurance. They may have banded together and found a special risk carrier to offer some basic coverage.

Good luck"

#2
Mr. Avenoso,

Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in our agency. Unfortunately, none of the markets that we have are willing to offer quotations for gyroplane craft. We regret we are unable to assist you in this matter.
 
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And you thought car insurance was bad here in NJ. I hope I can find something, if not that may end my Gyro aspirations. I can't afford to spend 35-40G's on a Gyro then have a gust of wind leave me with a bill and a pile of debris. Besides liability is crucial, an emergency landing or running over someones poodle while taxiing can take you down for a long time. (or incorporate the gyro and rent it to myself so my assets won't be liable)
 
Check your life insurance policies carefully also. I had a small one and hidden in all the gobbledy-gook was a statement that I was not covered when flying or riding in an experimental rotorcraft. That was the only exclusion of this sort and they didn't know what I flew or even that I flew when I got the policy.

If you're looking for hull damage.....double forget it. They want 10% of the value of the craft per year and it has to be insured for full value. In other words you can't insure it for half the value expecting that would be enough for a rebuild. If it's worth 35 G, the premium is $3,500 per year just for the hull damage. And of course you can't get hull without buying liability first.
 
Just build or buy a cheap single seat gyro that you don't have a life savings invested into - a Gyrobee for example - and go fly. A really nice gyrobee should not cost you more than 10 grand ready to fly, and even if you crash the heck out of it, it shouldn't cost you more than half that to rebuild... Most cases alot less.

If you got to have a fancy two place flying machine, then buy a Aeronca Champ for 20 grand and you can get insurance easily.... Full coverage, and not too expensive either.

Aeronca Champ - or any of a whole slew of other simular low and slow planes - 20 grand, Sweet gyrobee - 10 grand..... Total = 30 grand. Still less than a Magni or Sparrowhawk and you got TWO toys to play with.
 
yeah the gyrobee shouldn't cost me more than $8,000 complete. Thats why I don't understand why no one is willing to insure for even just liability. Do they still think gyros are unsafe? SHould we get together and form our own insurance company just for us gyro guys?
 
Kdog, not to be a smart ass, but YES gyros are still unsafe.

Sure some gyros are very safe, while yet others are flying death traps. Until the flying death traps are made into safe gyros, there will continue to be accidents and deaths and as long as that keeps up there will be a hard time getting insurance. As long as there is still gyros crashing on a regular basis, ALL gyros will be affected by it. No one cares that one gyro is safer than another. A gyro is a gyro to most, and to most a gyro is a dangerous flying machine.

Most insurance companies don't care or want to learn the difference between a Sparrowhawk and a Stock RAF - one is very safe, the other can be very unsafe, Or the difference between a Dominator or Monarch and a Stock KB-3 or older low rider aircommand - again, two safe and two not safe. To the insurance companies a gyro is a GYRO period, and they don't want a part of it. The risk is too great as far as they see it.

Some kit makers such as Sparrowhawk and Sportcopter have gotten a insurance company to look at their products and have been able to get insurance for the buyers of their kits.
 
KDOG, excuse me to intrude in this thread that does not really concern me.. but your idea is good...a collective insurance exists , here , for motorcyclemen who were tired of paying , they created a mutual insurance system and now it works well for year and has become THE insurance for motos.

to work, a such system must have enough members, so you will centainly need to include FW pilots i think..BTW as said ron, gyro is a little risky, so , a such company sould evaluate the risks precisely enough to still profitable..
thanks
 
Getting approved in every state of the U.S. would be a nightmare. Each state has their own criteria. I remember when several companies were writing gyro insurance, but none were licensed in California. Too many hoops with bonds, etc. having to be posted. Multiply that by 49 other sets of laws and it's a barrel of monkeys. Even a gyro group setting up their own insurance company would still have to comply with each state's laws. France is one country, but the U.S. is made up of 50 fiefdoms, all with their own ways of doing things.

Plus, the rates are set by statistics, and even an independent group would have to use them to stay profitable. If your payouts outnumber your premiums, you're history. No one can change the statistics. If there was any money to be made in gyro insurance, everyone would be selling it.
 
What? Gyros are unsafe? I thought they were nowadays! I thought the talk of them being unsafe was old, like from the '70s or so. Where does the Gyrobee fit in the safety ratings? My construction of my bee wil HALT if it has a bad safety rating!!!

ANd if safety ratings are different for different gyros, why don't they just rate each one like they do for cars?
 
The gyrobee if built stock is a very safe gyro. No reason to halt the build.

As for rating gyros for safety.... Come on, think about it! Who wants their pride and joy being rated poorly?

You see that is the thing that makes gyros - and all experimental airCRAFT - exciting... The freedom to build and fly whatever you want to. The problem with that freedom for us as gyroplane owners and pilots, is to nearly everyone in aviation - and alot more that aren't - is they group all gyros into the same category. The safest gyros suffer the bad rep the unsafe ones have given the category as a whole.

The problem is also made worse by the fact that the worse flying, most unstable and most dangerous gyros can be flown time after time, for thousands upon thousands of hours by a skilled pilot flying within his or hers AND the gyros flight envelope. But if a less skilled pilot trys the same type of machine, or the skilled pilot makes a mistake.... Well then we read about another fatal gyro crash. And then all of the gyroworld suffers cause of it.
 
Move out of Jersey.

Move out of Jersey.

Not to put down Jersey, (I am from the tri state area) but what the heck is in Jersey that would keep you from deciding from flying to living in such a place.....

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not found in the tri state area if you are a working man.

Come to North Carolina or Georgia.

Better question have you flow a gyro yet ?

That may make your decision easier.



Jonathan
 
oh , yes ken you re right, i didnt think about such differences between states... i only see for you a kind of lobbying, but do the insurance companies care about gyro flyers? maybe gyro+VLA+helico+... ?
 
The problem, as I understand it, is that from the early 1960 untill 2000 the accident rate of gyroplanes was 26 per 100,000 hours. The rest of fixed wing aviation was 1.1 per 100,000 hours. Gyroplanes for the last 40 years have had a record of 23 times more accidents than fixed wing aircraft.

Before the 60's gyroplanes had the reputation of being as safe or safer than fixed wing aviation.

What happened to the gyroplane part of aviation was that generally the experience and training level of gyro pilots was far less than other forms of aviation and the designs of many gyros evolved into unstable aircraft.

Can you blame insurance companies for not wanting to write this market. I would want to charge $23 compared to every $1 in the fixed wing market.

Well, (thank goodness) it sounds like there may be one or two companies that looking at this market and trying to figure out how to do it right and be successful. I don't think all is lost. If we train new pilots well and fly safe stable aircraft than that part of the gyro market should have the same rate per 100,000 hours as gyros had before the 60's.
 
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Then maybe we ought to do what I suggested earlier - start our own insurance. Spread the word. We can do it!!!
 
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