Friday, December 17, 2010
Taking to the skies, before your voice breaks
If you think that young driver insurance is expensive, you should try getting a quote for young flyer insurance.
Every year here in Britain, a handful of young people will qualify for their pilot’s licenses before they’re even old enough to be eligible to drive.
Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but with the cost of flying lessons, including the requisite 45 hours flying time, typically exceeding £15,000, my guess is that most young pilots will not typically come from a section of society that has to worry too much about finding the cheapest cover.
In a way, it’s baffling that aviator’s insurance should be so expensive. We’re always being told that it’s safer to fly than it is to cross the road, and the chances of suffering a rear-end, whiplash-inducing collision are very low.
But from another perspective it is easier to understand the cost. Any passengers a young pilot takes up for a flight are likely, by association, to come from the jet set. Furthermore, once you’re several thousand feet up in the air, chances are that if your plane falls out the sky and lands on something, you’re going to do a fair amount of costly damage.
Then you must also consider the kinds of people who are likely to be mulling around a private airport. Bump into a millionaire and you could easily find yourself liable for a multi-million pound payout. And that’s not to mention the probable vehicles. Can you imagine how painful it would feel taxiing into a Ferrari, Bentley or Aston Martin, knowing that you don’t have the liability insurance to cover the damage?
Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but with the cost of flying lessons, including the requisite 45 hours flying time, typically exceeding £15,000, my guess is that most young pilots will not typically come from a section of society that has to worry too much about finding the cheapest cover.
In a way, it’s baffling that aviator’s insurance should be so expensive. We’re always being told that it’s safer to fly than it is to cross the road, and the chances of suffering a rear-end, whiplash-inducing collision are very low.
But from another perspective it is easier to understand the cost. Any passengers a young pilot takes up for a flight are likely, by association, to come from the jet set. Furthermore, once you’re several thousand feet up in the air, chances are that if your plane falls out the sky and lands on something, you’re going to do a fair amount of costly damage.
Then you must also consider the kinds of people who are likely to be mulling around a private airport. Bump into a millionaire and you could easily find yourself liable for a multi-million pound payout. And that’s not to mention the probable vehicles. Can you imagine how painful it would feel taxiing into a Ferrari, Bentley or Aston Martin, knowing that you don’t have the liability insurance to cover the damage?
Image © Molechaser via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: young driver insurance
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posted by Fuse @ 4:17 AM 
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