Photo courtesy of Aero Air Aviation insurance underwriters are making money again. That’s good news for owners, who have taken the brunt of recent losses in the form of higher rates and tighter restrictions.
Thanks to a soft market and heavy commercial losses, underwriters spent a few lean years in the hole through the late 2010s and early 2020s. Recent premium increases were seen as necessary to get the dwindling number of players once again into the black. Thankfully, the situation seems to be stabilizing, according to Tom Johnson, president of Assured Partners’ Phoenix office, and an active pilot. “The worst of the pricing pressure has gone down a bit,” he said. Johnson is predicting premiums across all sectors to be flat to up maybe 5 percent.
Further helping the situation for owners is some renewed competition among underwriters, as two new players are now in the market, with others expected soon. Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for Twin Commander owners, as legacy turboprops continue to be squeezed between only a few select companies. “They are pressed to a corner of the market where there’s only a few that want to write,” he said. “You don’t see higher liability limits on those.”
Johnson said the lack of approved training providers is also a problem, as simulators are limited, and underwriters maybe don’t fully understand model similarities enough to allow for cross-training from certain providers. A company may require training from an approved operator, for example, but not have a list of who is approved. Or the approved list will apply to a different type, even though there are enough similarities amongst the models to make it practical that one provider could do both.
He suggests that shopping around might not help your rate with such a limited pool of underwriters to draw from, and that sticking with the current provider may be the best option.
