From the Front Lines: Aviation

How did you get started at your agency?

I’ve been a professional airman for over 20 years, and my husband has been a professional airman for 50 years. I’m a copilot in addition to flying corporate jets. I have several airplanes myself, and at the moment, I’m teaching my goddaughter how to fly.

We got started back when we built a corporate facility in the Walker County Airport and tried to get coverage on the property. All of a sudden, the insurance companies were saying we’d been declined, and nobody would talk to us. Here we were, professional airmen who’d never had a violation, never had an accident, never had a problem, we had a perfect credit rating—why in the world would we not be a good risk?

What we didn’t comprehend at the time is how aviation insurance works—that general insurance agents normally do not have these kinds of appointments, and don’t understand the aviation portion of the coverage. So what they’ll do is they’ll farm you out to a wholesale broker who knows the business very well, but if your agent doesn’t give that broker the proper information, you have a problem getting your coverage, and you can’t speak directly with the underwriters.

That’s kind of what happened to us. We ended up working with an aviation specialist who figured out the problem, got with the underwriter, and explained what was going on. The underwriter said, “Oh, OK. We’d be happy to write them.”

At this point, if somebody had told me I was going to own an insurance agency a few years later, I would’ve laughed and said, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” But we learned through this process that it’s a problem so many people have.

Long story short, my husband and I went and got our insurance license and we worked under that same woman who initially helped us at her agency for about a year, and learned how to work with the aviation underwriters directly. From there, we went to work with a larger agency for a year, but when we negotiated our contract, we also negotiated our out, which allowed us to take all the new business we brought to that agency when we were ready to start our own agency.

Why aviation insurance?

We do aviation for a living. We own a flight school. We own antique aircraft. We have done corporate operations. We’ve done pretty much everything in aviation, so we make a very good advocate for our clients.

It’s also what we do for fun. We actually live in a hangar house. Aviation is what and who we are. It’s our lives.

Biggest aviation insurance changes?

Well, there have been many new players. Only a small number of companies write aviation coverage—about 14 or 16, depending on the day of the month. They come, and they go. Unlike your regular property-casualty, where there are hundreds of choices, there aren’t in aviation. And out of the aviation underwriters out there, any given underwriter may only write two or three types of aviation business. Some may write small and large aircraft, but they may not write experimental or antique aircraft. Or they may write aviation property, but they don’t do business workers comp. Your universe of choices for aviation coverage gets small very quickly.

Biggest aviation insurance challenges?

Educating your clients so that they understand they can’t treat their aviation insurance like they treat their house or their car. “Why can’t I go to three different agencies and get a quote?” That is a big hurdle. Once they get past that, they go, “Well, that’s kind of a racket.” It’s really not—you just have to make them understand that while they can’t go to multiple markets, a good insurance agent will do that on their behalf.

Future of aviation insurance?

In general, the aviation market is exploding—worldwide. So there will be a lot of challenges to come. There’s going to be an issue with proper crewing of the aircraft because people have heard about the ensuing pilot shortage, which is just going to make it harder and harder to find enough qualified airmen because the number of airplanes worldwide is expanding so rapidly. With the economy getting better, people who were not in it before are starting to get into the aviation game. Our challenge is to keep enough properly educated and experienced aviation professionals in the market.

Aviation insurance advice for a fellow agent?

First, they need to find a mentor who knows aviation. Anybody can go and get an insurance license, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about aviation. Also, if you’re going to be in the market, I highly recommend that you get a private pilot’s license. Aviation is a whole new language, much like the medical field. If you can’t speak the language of the people you are insuring, you can’t understand their needs.

Favorite aviation insurance success story?

Ten years ago, I had a young man call me out of Alaska. He’d been flying all his life, and he had a dream—he wanted to start a warbird school. That means vintage aircraft like Stearmans and T-6s, which is what they used to teach the airmen during World War II. But he didn’t understand the issue of only working with aviation agencies, and somebody had gotten him declined before he’d even started with his first airplane.

I had him write me an aviation resume about himself, including all his experience and what he intended to do with the aircraft—how it was going to work. I’ve had a lot of time in a Stearman, and I used to race T-6s. My husband and I, we know those airplanes. We know what they’re capable of. So we helped him design a program that the underwriters couldn’t be happier with. I got one of the major underwriters to change their minds, and today, he runs a flight school with half a dozen vintage antique aircraft. Nobody else would take the time to fix the problem.

This is what we call the Shoreline advantage. We are airmen—it’s what we do, it’s who we are. We know what you’re doing, we know what your challenges are, and we know what issues need to be looked at to determine the right coverage.

Will Jones is the IA assistant editor.