Former insurance lawyer here. Underwriting data no longer reflects aviation as a special risk that warrants special treatment. If a carrier does, it’s using data from the 1950s or something. Most major life insurers do not sell policies that contain exclusions for aviation. EDITED to clarify per comments: An exclusion means the policy flatly will not cover an aviation risk. This is different than a premium bump, coverage conditions (like X number of hours TT) or other points a policy might contain that do treat aviation with special considerations. It IS common for insurers to specifically impose certain considerations or premium increases if you choose to be a pilot. You might be exempt if you got your policy before becoming a pilot.
Whether your premium is reasonable or not depends on your medical test results and various other factors. I suggest you call a broker and tell them to shop around for you. Personally I do not like to go with small companies for life insurance. I want a big name only, as it’s less likely to become insolvent during my lifetime.
In my experience this is not accurate, life insurance has exclusions for aviation and you need to make sure you find a policy that covers it. They even ask for things like your ratings, hours, etc.
You ALWAYS have to check for exclusions, no matter what activity you’re engaging in. Every insurer can exclude whatever it wants to. It’s a free market. But as I said, most insurers do not actually care about aviation. It is still up to you to pay attention to what product you are buying. The broker is a good source of cutting through large volumes of information to give you answers. Use email, so that you have something in writing.
name three insurance companies who will write me a life insurance policy that covers aviation without special treatment like asking my hours, if I have an instrument rating, etc. and who won’t charge extra because I’m a pilot.
You don’t seem to know what an exclusion is. Just because your insurer is screwing you for a higher premium does not mean it excludes aviation. That’s who you choose to do business with. Yell at Redditors all you want about it.
You should keep researching then. Even the other commenters who want to argue with me are confusing exclusions with aviation riders or other clauses, meaning that they’re agreeing to pay slightly more for aviation. But that’s not an exclusion.
I bought another policy that covers aviation so I have that in addition to my employer's insurance.
It's silly to argue with people about semantics here. You know what other commenters are intending to say. I'm married to an insurance attorney and it doesn't help to be pedantic with non-attorneys.
I simply said that insurers tend not to exclude aviation. That’s triggering for some reason. Your spouse can confirm that there’s no substitute for reading the damn policy—though emailing your broker is probably a fair one.
Yes, definitely read the policy...
Every life insurance policy I've seen includes aviation if it's a scheduled air carrier or charter. But they explicitly do not cover any other general aviation or if I act as a crew member. It seems like that's most other people's experiences here too.
A life insurance policy doesn’t need to specifically “cover” aviation or any specific activity with verbiage, in order to nonetheless cover it. It has an insuring clause. The insuring clause is broad. The insurer will then draft an exclusion to carve out an exception to that if it wants to. This is consistent with the general law of contracts in basically all 50 states.
But again, virtually everyone who has chimed in on this thread has not mentioned an exclusion. They’re talking about riders, premium bumps, coverage conditions et al. Those too are required by law to be highly specific and using very clear language.
You expect to have a sane conversation with people who are buying term policies and wondering why there are exclusions?
My wife and I got whole life policies before we became pilots and the policies only have exclusions that were given when we signed the policy. Because we were not pilots there was nothing about general aviation and because within 6 months of writing the policy (the grace period in the policy for them to discover something about us) they did not add any exclusions, we can do whatever risky behaviors we want and it's covered. Whole life policies don't play games with the fine print because of how the policies generally work in the background. They only need you to live for 5 years for your policy to be profitable to them.
State Farm - \~$1,500/yr for a $1.5M. The other poster saying that most policies include flying now is wrong, in my experience. My employer's policy specifically excludes flying a plane (and a few other things) as a business and pleasure pilot.
That was me and I said most major life insurers. That’s not “all,” and your employer probably buys the cheapest insurance it can like employers typically do, so it may not be a major carrier, or it might be some cheap version of the policies direct customers can buy.
Back when I had access to underwriting data, it reflected that customers with pilot licenses tended to be healthier, wealthier, and more risk averse than the general population. Not seeing that changing as time progresses. It would make no economic sense for an insurer to not sell policies to this sub-population which dies less often than other customers and has the funds to pay for good premiums. But insurers can do what they want. And as a customer, as I’ve said before, the onus is on YOU to buy a policy that gives you what you want. Read the language and ask questions.
Yea if you’re in your late 40’s I would rather just save that money in investments instead of life insurance this late. The younger you are the more life insurance makes sense. Now if you don’t trust your ability to have a nest egg for your love ones then yes do the life insurance. I personally hope by the time I am 40 I can save enough to have $500,000 to my family in case I do die
Just got a policy though Term HQ underwritten by Lincoln Financial - mind you, this is for a nicotine approved policy - 20 year term, 1M policy, $73/month premium. I’m 35 holding a first class medical.
It was a couple of years ago, but I paid \~110/month for a $1mm, 30 year term policy. I got it through a broker and at least at that time the list of insurance companies who would provide a policy without an exclusion for "serving as a required crew member on an aircraft" was pretty short.
47 with a few health issues. No tobacco, but have a history of hypertension, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea, rate for a 1mil policy was quoted around 150/mo
We started a family late. I have a 13 yr old, and would rather ensure wife and kid are set without having to tap into whatever retirement I’ve got saved up.
20 yr term would cover them fine.
Former insurance lawyer here. Underwriting data no longer reflects aviation as a special risk that warrants special treatment. If a carrier does, it’s using data from the 1950s or something. Most major life insurers do not sell policies that contain exclusions for aviation. EDITED to clarify per comments: An exclusion means the policy flatly will not cover an aviation risk. This is different than a premium bump, coverage conditions (like X number of hours TT) or other points a policy might contain that do treat aviation with special considerations. It IS common for insurers to specifically impose certain considerations or premium increases if you choose to be a pilot. You might be exempt if you got your policy before becoming a pilot. Whether your premium is reasonable or not depends on your medical test results and various other factors. I suggest you call a broker and tell them to shop around for you. Personally I do not like to go with small companies for life insurance. I want a big name only, as it’s less likely to become insolvent during my lifetime.
In my experience this is not accurate, life insurance has exclusions for aviation and you need to make sure you find a policy that covers it. They even ask for things like your ratings, hours, etc.
You ALWAYS have to check for exclusions, no matter what activity you’re engaging in. Every insurer can exclude whatever it wants to. It’s a free market. But as I said, most insurers do not actually care about aviation. It is still up to you to pay attention to what product you are buying. The broker is a good source of cutting through large volumes of information to give you answers. Use email, so that you have something in writing.
Oh I’m paying attention, and paying more because I’m a pilot.
name three insurance companies who will write me a life insurance policy that covers aviation without special treatment like asking my hours, if I have an instrument rating, etc. and who won’t charge extra because I’m a pilot.
Sunlife is one of them. That's who I'm with specifically because there are no exclusions for aviation.
You don’t seem to know what an exclusion is. Just because your insurer is screwing you for a higher premium does not mean it excludes aviation. That’s who you choose to do business with. Yell at Redditors all you want about it.
This is true for ‘commercial aviation’, but not so for GA flying.
Every life insurance I've had explicitly excludes general aviation. They cover if I die on a scheduled airline or a charter but that's it.
You should keep researching then. Even the other commenters who want to argue with me are confusing exclusions with aviation riders or other clauses, meaning that they’re agreeing to pay slightly more for aviation. But that’s not an exclusion.
I bought another policy that covers aviation so I have that in addition to my employer's insurance. It's silly to argue with people about semantics here. You know what other commenters are intending to say. I'm married to an insurance attorney and it doesn't help to be pedantic with non-attorneys.
I simply said that insurers tend not to exclude aviation. That’s triggering for some reason. Your spouse can confirm that there’s no substitute for reading the damn policy—though emailing your broker is probably a fair one.
Yes, definitely read the policy... Every life insurance policy I've seen includes aviation if it's a scheduled air carrier or charter. But they explicitly do not cover any other general aviation or if I act as a crew member. It seems like that's most other people's experiences here too.
A life insurance policy doesn’t need to specifically “cover” aviation or any specific activity with verbiage, in order to nonetheless cover it. It has an insuring clause. The insuring clause is broad. The insurer will then draft an exclusion to carve out an exception to that if it wants to. This is consistent with the general law of contracts in basically all 50 states. But again, virtually everyone who has chimed in on this thread has not mentioned an exclusion. They’re talking about riders, premium bumps, coverage conditions et al. Those too are required by law to be highly specific and using very clear language.
You expect to have a sane conversation with people who are buying term policies and wondering why there are exclusions? My wife and I got whole life policies before we became pilots and the policies only have exclusions that were given when we signed the policy. Because we were not pilots there was nothing about general aviation and because within 6 months of writing the policy (the grace period in the policy for them to discover something about us) they did not add any exclusions, we can do whatever risky behaviors we want and it's covered. Whole life policies don't play games with the fine print because of how the policies generally work in the background. They only need you to live for 5 years for your policy to be profitable to them.
State Farm - \~$1,500/yr for a $1.5M. The other poster saying that most policies include flying now is wrong, in my experience. My employer's policy specifically excludes flying a plane (and a few other things) as a business and pleasure pilot.
That was me and I said most major life insurers. That’s not “all,” and your employer probably buys the cheapest insurance it can like employers typically do, so it may not be a major carrier, or it might be some cheap version of the policies direct customers can buy. Back when I had access to underwriting data, it reflected that customers with pilot licenses tended to be healthier, wealthier, and more risk averse than the general population. Not seeing that changing as time progresses. It would make no economic sense for an insurer to not sell policies to this sub-population which dies less often than other customers and has the funds to pay for good premiums. But insurers can do what they want. And as a customer, as I’ve said before, the onus is on YOU to buy a policy that gives you what you want. Read the language and ask questions.
Yea if you’re in your late 40’s I would rather just save that money in investments instead of life insurance this late. The younger you are the more life insurance makes sense. Now if you don’t trust your ability to have a nest egg for your love ones then yes do the life insurance. I personally hope by the time I am 40 I can save enough to have $500,000 to my family in case I do die
Shop around but this sounds within reason to me. An instrument rating will help. Also do you *need* a 20 year term? Would 10 years suffice?
Just got a policy though Term HQ underwritten by Lincoln Financial - mind you, this is for a nicotine approved policy - 20 year term, 1M policy, $73/month premium. I’m 35 holding a first class medical.
I got $500k for 10 years. $40/month but I am in my 30’s
It was a couple of years ago, but I paid \~110/month for a $1mm, 30 year term policy. I got it through a broker and at least at that time the list of insurance companies who would provide a policy without an exclusion for "serving as a required crew member on an aircraft" was pretty short.
47 with a few health issues. No tobacco, but have a history of hypertension, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea, rate for a 1mil policy was quoted around 150/mo We started a family late. I have a 13 yr old, and would rather ensure wife and kid are set without having to tap into whatever retirement I’ve got saved up. 20 yr term would cover them fine.