Hi Bruce As OAMPS cover the majority of gliders in Australia for accident insurance and insure the GFA for public indemnity at all GFA sanctioned competitions I wonder if they may not be more amenable to your insurance requirements? I assume that you most likely have contacted them during your project. What was their response? ROSS
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bruce Campbell Sent: Wednesday, 18 May 2011 8:50 PM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Insurance questions (income protection not glider insurance) Kevin, thanks for the reply - you may want to contact off list. Thanks to all who responded off list with suggestions for more gliding tolerant insurers. Everyone, Here is some food for thought if you have or are contemplating taking out life/income protection/TPD/trauma insurance (less relevant for the latter which is for non-accident health issues, but they are a package in my case). 1. Competition Flying Risks. An extensive search has failed to turn up an insurer willing to accept competition flying for Income Protection and Temporary/Permanent Disability. There is no exclusion for life cover (it may be unhelpful to comment on this inconsistency). This has been a frustrating process. The broker recommended insurer, OnePath (an ANZ owned company) is unwilling to accept gliding risks at all for TPD and IP, so I am not going to accept them for life either on the basis that they are less willing to accept these risks for other products so more likely to find a reason to deny a life insurance claim by my dependents (my assessment). Plus I just don't like their attitude. :-) 2. Recreational Gliding Risks. We were able to identify insurers willing to accept "recreational gliding" risks. (Several other pilots were of assistance here - thanks). To all those comp pilots out there - sorry, but comp flying is not considered recreational despite the fact that we choose to use our recreation time for it, and we do it for fun (well some maybe for self flagellation too I guess). The definition excludes competition flying, and some had annual hour limits - ie no greater than 50 or 100 hours (varied), which is fine for me now but may not be (again) in future. However since most of my hours >100 per annum in the past were in comps it is a moot point. No, they don't understand currency. 3. Practice for Competitions. This was raised in the context of seeking gliding risk cover for recreational flying but not for competitions. That is, it was disclosed that I had flown competitions, had no immediate plans to do so again, but am likely to in the less immediate future. Upon the merest mention of competition flying, even those who are prepared to accept recreational gliding will not insure any gliding risks. They advised that it was too difficult to differentiate practice for competitions from recreational flying. Competition flying includes practice then - including practice years before the next comp. By extrapolation then: so when you fly you had better not be practicing your thermalling technique. Cross country? Oh no. Too much like comp flying. And God help you if you were racing some mates on any given Sunday, because an insurer won't. 4. What Constitutes a Gliding Competition? I think that this may be of concern for anyone who does not consider themselves a comp pilot, but who has entered - or is contemplating entering - the OLC. C stands for guess what? These results are publically available. If you have IP and/or TPD, and you are unfortunate enough to have a gliding related claim, then would you want to have a web search reveal that you have entered a competition? Did you disclose this to your insurer? Yes I am frustrated at my own experience pursuing insurance. Perhaps it is colouring my thinking, but you may want to think about this. Based on insurer's attitudes to competition flying, a mean insurer, upon going to the effort of googling your name and gliding, may discover that you do competition flying.......... big red stamp, etc. 5. Duty of disclosure. This is a trap for the unwary. Because the first insurer approached rejected gliding risks, and because the others rejected competition related risks, when they rejected my request the broker was duty bound to disclose the rejection to other potential insurers. Insurers seem to think like sheep - if one rejects a risk, others are then more likely to reject it even though a fresh approach would have been successful. Insurers are sensitive to anything out of the ordinary, and default to "no". (Compare the risks to motorcycling I mentioned earlier - statistically a far greater risk but no exclusions - seems like they know what it is so that makes it OK). Lesson - use an experienced broker, and think carefully about how you disclose your gliding activity. Then again, if we'd approached a favourable insurer straight up rather than OnePath we may not have had this problem. I hope that this has been thought provoking, and maybe is of use to someone. If not, forgive the indulgence - but why did you read this far? :-) Cheers Bruce On 18 May 2011 09:22, Kevin Roden <[email protected]> wrote: I have IP & TPD through AMP. Cover is for gliding only and is specifically included. I am sure (from memory) there is no mention of competition flying, however I believe there is a restriction if average flight time exceeds 50 hours per year. I have had the cover for the past 12 years. Sorry for late reply, I was away over Easter and am just cleaning out my email Kevin Roden 07 5445 6721 0429 627 210 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] On 28 April 2011 21:05, Bruce Campbell <[email protected]> wrote: Hi, follow-up to this off-line has been helpful, but insurers are still revolting on the item of competition flying. I have managed to get an offer of IP and TPD insurance for which general gliding is not excluded, but claims involving competition flying remain excluded. So, I'm putting this question out there again, but with a slightly different emphasis. Has anyone out there got Income Protection and Temporary/Permanent Disability insurance but for which competition flying has NOT been excluded. If so, can you please contact me and let me know which companies are gliding friendly, including comp flying. Thanks! Bruce Bruce Campbell On 13 April 2011 22:04, Bruce Campbell <[email protected]> wrote: Hi, Has anyone had TPD* and Income protection insurance for claims related to gliding excluded from their policy? Has anyone negotiated an alternate outcome (having initially been denied insurance for these types of claims)? I suspect that the insurance company concerned does not understand the difference between various forms of gliding - the application forms require hang gliding to be nominated. Gliding is obviously considered a higher risk than motorcycling, which was disclosed but no exclusion. I ride, and consider it a higher risk (but it's fun, and a challenge, and closes the occasional midlife crisis gap). Also noteworthy - gliding is not excluded for life insurance claims - just TPD and income protection. Interested in genuine contributions off list - others can go to the list! * TPD = temporary/permanent disability Thanks Bruce _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
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