Insurance vs. age

[CFIDave]

Rich, you're giving me hope that I'll still be insurable in a DA40 when I'm your age.

I'm assuming that when I turn 70 in a few years that I'll no longer be insurable to fly single pilot in a 1200 hp turbine cruising 300+ knots at FL340 -- so I'll be forced to sell our Epic. At that point the plan is to go back to owning a DA40. (My pilot wife is currently insured in a DA40NG in which she's dry leasing hours, so by flying with her I currently get my "DA40 fix." )

[Mjwatlanta]

What is the sweet spot for flying hours versus premiums? I’m 65 and coming up on my first renewal as an owner who returned to flying after a long break. My agent says because I flew a lot last year that will help my premiums. Is there a number of hours where the rate goes up because the hours are so high?

[Boatguy]

Good question.

[Rich]

Is there a number of hours where the rate goes up because the hours are so high?

That is a good question. In my case they ask for total hours in various categories, including last twelve months. But not the hours on the airplane. There is no explicit reporting of hours on the airplane or in total or SMOH or anything like that. The only thing explicitly known is the age in years of the plane. These days my hours = airplane hours. But it wasn't always so and it would be incorrect to presume so for all cases.

[Don]

This past year I hit 70 and my pilot wife is 69. Ninety eight percent of the time we fly together and both of us are CRM trained and share workload as a team. I never checked with our insurance company to see if they have a discount for CRM but probably worth a phone call to them.
https://www.facebook.com/10000910314901 ... 1612860948

[Lance Murray]

A while back I added a 76 year old pilot to my policy. They didn’t want to touch him despite his 15 or so type ratings and 24,000 hours.

I finally was able to convince them if I agreed to have him get 10 hours in type. It was maybe a 10 percent increase

[Steve]

Is there a number of hours where the rate goes up because the hours are so high?

That is a good question. In my case they ask for total hours in various categories, including last twelve months. But not the hours on the airplane. There is no explicit reporting of hours on the airplane or in total or SMOH or anything like that. The only thing explicitly known is the age in years of the plane. These days my hours = airplane hours. But it wasn't always so and it would be incorrect to presume so for all cases.

My insurance company (Avemco) does explicitly ask for Make and Model hours every year. In my case, MM hours represent about 2/3 of my total hours.

[chili4way]

What is the sweet spot for flying hours versus premiums? ... Is there a number of hours where the rate goes up because the hours are so high?

I don't think there is an insurance premium downside to flying "too many" hours per year -- provided you are flying within the terms of your policy's permitted flight categories and have no claims.

Flying a lot of hours per year will affect your maintenance costs more. This is significant for the DA40NG (Austro engines in general) because not all scheduled service intervals cost the same as a "100-hour oil change". For example, 600-hour and 900-hour services are much more expensive. You'll reach these sooner the more hours you fly per year.