Perhaps it’s your profession or simply a weekend hobby. Perhaps it’s part of your business operations. Whether for recreational or business purposes, piloting and flying personal aircraft is becoming more and more a part of American life. In fact, by the end of 2015, there were an estimated 590,039 active certificated pilots in the U.S.

Liability for pilots can provide coverage for you if you were to cause property damage or injure a third party when flying a plane. You can determine what type of policy you should carry depending on what kind of flying you do.

Pilot Instructors

If you instruct student pilots, you need pilot instructor insurance for checkrides, which establish a pilot’s ability to receive or upgrade their certification, and Federal Aviation Administration reviews that evaluate a pilot’s fitness to fly. If you don’t own the aircraft, the owner’s policy may not include you in any damages.

Student Pilots

Student pilots usually rent the planes they fly, and often the machines aren’t covered by the owner’s policy. By getting student pilot insurance, including aircraft renter or non-owner liability, you can be protected if you cause bodily harm or property damage while taking lessons.

Personal or Professional Pilots

Many general aviation pilots use non-owned aircraft to raise their hours. If you fly a rental, pilot liability insurance can provide the peace of mind you need, whether you are operating an airplane, helicopter, or drone. The insurance can cover commercial pilots as well as independent contractors who don’t work for one specific airline. It also encompasses third-party bodily injury or property damage.

Aircraft Schools

If you offer instruction at a flying school, you should protect yourself in case anything happens with your students or one of the planes they use. You can use commercial general liability, property, premises, commercial, and other insurance to safeguard you financially.

Please be advised that XINSURANCE does not offer workers’ compensation insurance, so you will need to pursue an external policy for this coverage.

Commercial Airline Pilots

Can the pilot really be sued and held liable for damages to either the airline or passengers?

With custom commercial pilot liability insurance, any pilot can make sure they’re covered and protected from civil lawsuits seeking damages even if their employer does not offer such protection. With a plan that is designed to fit your needs, no pilot will have to worry about gaps in their insurance policies leaving them and their family vulnerable to lawsuits seeking monetary damages.

The Bottom Line

Any pilot that takes flight can take comfort with personal pilot liability insurance.

What is Student Pilot Insurance?

Student pilot insurance protects you from having to pay hefty fees if something happens to the airplane you’re flying, or something else goes wrong during a flight. Insurance can cover you and the plane you rent for your flying lessons. You can be held responsible for damage to the plane, but liability insurance may prevent you from having a large payout.

You can also avoid paying for bodily injury to another person while you fly or property damage sustained during a flight. You would never dream of getting in a car without insurance, and it’s just as important to have an insurance policy while flying an airplane.

Why it’s important to have Student Pilot Information

Student pilot insurance can safeguard you and your finances in the event of damage or injury. Reasons to get student pilot insurance include:

1. Following requirements: Your fixed-base operator (FBO) or flight school may not let you fly unless you have insurance.
2. Ensuring protection: The policy of your FBO or flight school often only covers them.
3. Preparing for responsibility: Even when using a rental, the plane owner or their insurance company could hold you accountable for anything bad that happens during a flight.

What’s under Student Pilot Insurance

Student pilot insurance can protect you in various circumstances. For instance, if someone with a subrogation clause owns the plane you are flying, insurance can cover the costs of their loss of use. Your policy can also cover medical expenses if you get hurt. If you damage the hull while flying, insurance can pay for the damage to the aircraft. This does not cover full hull (inland marine coverage), it can only cover up to $10,000 (or more for an additional premium) for legal liability to non-owned aircraft covering the deductible. The policy covers 3^rd party on the ground, no passengers.

Understanding Negligence By A Flight Instructor

Liability for an accident involves two categories — intentional or negligent acts. An intentional act will leave a certified flight instructor (CFI) without insurance protection, but flight liability often comes from negligence.

What is negligence in the insurance world? Negligence is often defined as a lack of due care. As a flight instructor, it’s your responsibility to pay attention to safety details and make smart decisions. If you’re held liable for an accident, legal professionals will consider whether you properly executed your duties as a CFI.

As a certified flight professional, you’re held to a high standard. If a prosecutor finds you weren’t fulfilling your responsibilities as a flight instructor, you’ll have to pay out a large sum of money. In an instance where you’re flying with a student pilot, the responsibility may technically be theirs due to their lack of experience, but the event will still likely fall on your shoulders since you’re the instructor.

One of your many responsibilities as a CFI is making sure you have fulfilled all of your duties as a flight professional.

What Can You Do To Reduce Risk?

• Release forms: You should always require your student pilots to sign release forms before starting instruction. These official documents express the involved risk with flight lessons, and when a student signs one, they acknowledge that you may not be liable for any harm that could occur. Waivers like these can be valuable, but they won’t protect you on their own.
• Documentation: As a CFI, you have a series of steps you have to complete before taking flight, like checking various parts of the plane. Make a note of and date these steps, and you’ll have evidence of you following through with your duties. It’s also critical to follow all training instructions closely and record proof of taking these steps.
• Attention to details: While documentation often involves an eye for detail, you should maintain that philosophy in everything you do. Exercise good judgment and ensure your students are making good decisions as well.

Possible Liabilities For Flight Instructors

Fact is, there are two main areas of exposure to pilots operating an aircraft — liability for physical injury or property damage, and physical damage to the aircraft. Think you’re covered because you’re working for a flight school? Think again. Although the school has insurance, when an accident happens, claimants are looking for multiple sources of compensation. That includes your personal estate, whether you’re alive or deceased. The aircraft owner can also come after you.

Common Scenarios:

• Physical Injury: Student falls from the plane
• Property Damage: Students hits or clips the hangar
• Damage to the Aircraft: Student damages a door of an aircraft

What, then, do you do to protect yourself? The best protection against costly litigation is individual liability insurance from a trusted insurance company.

Situations where pilot insurance should provide coverage include:

• While taxiing down a runway, a pilot clips the wing of another plane. Liability insurance may pay for the damage sustained by the other plane.
• During a rough landing, a student pilot causes damage to a plane owned by the instructor. The student’s non-owner liability policy may compensate the owner when repairing the damage.
• While on a weekend pleasure flight, you crash a plane that you own, killing your passenger. Your aircraft liability policy may compensate the victim’s family members if they file a successful lawsuit against you.

Have questions about our coverage? We have answers.

What Type of Aircraft Do You Cover?

We cover all types of aircraft, including airplanes as well as others. Our insurance solutions for pilots can include:

• Helicopter and rotorcraft
• LSAs
• Experimental
• Homebuilts and kit-planes
• Ultralights
• Vintage and antique

What’s the Cost of Pilot Insurance?

Pilot insurance is reasonably priced, offering you excellent reassurance for a minimal cost.  The actual dollar figure depends on what type of coverage you need as well as other factors, including your experience, age, location, and additional variables. To get an accurate estimate on what your pilot insurance would cost,  you can reach out to XINSURANCE to request a personal quote.

At XINSURANCE, we understand the unique insurance needs and challenges that pilots face. We specialize in providing insurance solutions for these and other difficult risks. Even if you’ve been declined, canceled, or non-renewed by another provider, we’ll help you obtain coverage that protects your assets and gives you true peace of mind. With the ability to offer limits of up to $10 million — and $20 million through our reinsurance partners — no risk is too big or small for XINSURANCE.

At XINSURANCE, we’re able to provide insurance solutions tailored to your unique coverage requirements. With our flexible underwriting process, we can deliver the right limits, deductibles, and premiums for every situation. We also support every policy we sell with top-notch customer service every step of the way.

Our all-in-one liability insurance coverage gives you true peace of mind. We’ll cover all your liability risks under one policy, eliminating worries about limitations, gaps, or exclusions that could increase your exposure.

If you need to file a claim, we’ll always be there to take your call, no matter when the event occurs. With our years of claims handling expertise, we’ll provide a fast outcome and a fair settlement. We can help with new and old claims alike.

You could have a new policy within 24 hours or less. It only takes a few minutes to apply for and receive aviation risk insurance from XINSURANCE online when you follow our five-step process:

1. Fill out and send in our online application form
2. Our team of in-house underwriters will reach out to set up a phone call where you can discuss your application in greater detail
3. We send you a no-obligation quote to look over
4. You accept and pay the premium
5. We help issue your insurance policy

Our underwriting team, which has more than 40 years of experience, can identify exclusions or gaps in your policy. Let us determine customized limits, coverage, deductibles, and premiums to create the perfect solution for you. Contact us today to request a quote or ask us to review your current coverage.