One Step Towards Easier Av Insurance
Columbia pilots and
owners now have one more option when shopping insurance thanks to
Avemco Insurance Company, the nation’s only direct
underwriter of aviation insurance.
Recently, representatives from the Bend, OR manufacturer met
with senior management to review Columbia’s FAA/Industry
Training Standards (FITS) curriculum for training pilots on how to
fly glass cockpits in technically advanced aircraft.
The result? Avemco endorsed the FITS program... and now Columbia
350 and 400 pilots have one more choice when buying aviation
insurance.
Avemco met with Columbia at the suggestion of Frank Crystal
& Company, the insurance broker of record for Columbia Aircraft
Manufacturing Corporation.
“The broker also sells insurance to individual Columbia
owners, so the cooperation with a competing company in underwriting
Columbia aircraft owners was a particularly gracious
gesture,” said Avemco’s executive vice president, Jim
Lauerman. “It tells us that Frank Crystal is committed to
making the ownership experience very strong for Columbia owners,
and helps to ensure that they will have access to the entire
aviation insurance marketplace.”
As aviation broker for Columbia Aircraft, Frank Crystal’s
Lou Timpanaro, Senior Managing Director, and Rob Johns, Managing
Director, have been working with the general aviation insurance
marketplace to encourage competition for the benefit of Columbia
owners.
Upon receiving final FITS-acceptance, Crystal invited Columbia
representatives Ron Wright, Vice President, and Terry Brewer, Chief
Pilot, to review the curriculum with Avemco senior underwriting
management.
“It was enlightening and quite interesting,”
Lauerman said. “I can’t tell you how much easier it
makes our job when a manufacturer provides us with detailed
information regarding the transition training they provide the new
aircraft owners.”
Although Avemco has insured Columbia’s certified aircraft
since the company started delivery in 2000, the new Columbia models
are even easier to insure now that the company’s training
program is FITS approved.
Lauerman has long been a proponent of the importance of FITS
accepted training. Avemco will not normally insure pilots who fly
in glass cockpits without it, and for good reason.
“Once there is a FITS accepted training syllabus for an
aircraft, we know there are certain standards written into
it,” Lauerman says. “When the pilot completes the
training, we believe they’ve gotten to a certain level of
competency and that was the main idea behind having FITS accepted
training for the new glass cockpits.”
Like all FITS training, Columbia’s new program is
“scenario-based.” Pilots are given real-world
situations and are trained to apply the cockpit’s modern
technology to act and react to the same types of challenges they
would have flying outside of the training environment. “The
most advanced avionics system in the world isn’t worth much
to a pilot if they don’t know how to use it
effectively,” said Columbia President Bing Lantis.
Avemco Insurance Company, a leading pleasure and business
general aviation insurer in the United States, has been insuring
planes and pilots since 1961.
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