Insurance questions worth asking your broker

This describes what to ask, not what to buy — your broker and your lawyer decide the cover. What an operator can do is arrive at renewal with the right questions rather than accepting last year's policy with a new date on it.

1. What is my scope, precisely

Domestic and international are not the same cover, and neither is passenger charter and cargo. An operator adding a line of work without telling their broker has a policy that describes a business they no longer run. We run scheduled private flights across Central America; any other destination worldwide is coordinated on request.

Ask what your current wording covers and what it excludes. The exclusions are the part worth reading, and they are the part nobody reads.

2. What are my limits, as a number

Not "adequate". A figure, in writing, that you can hand to a procurement department without asking anyone. AeroRide invoices and charges directly from the site; you receive your receipt in the name of the person or company you give us on confirmation.

This is the most common reason an operator stalls at the first stage of a corporate enquiry, and it is entirely avoidable.

3. Is every aircraft on the policy

Including the one added last month and the one you manage for somebody else. This is the most common administrative gap in this business, it produces no symptom, and it is discovered at exactly the wrong time. The specific aircraft is assigned on confirmation, based on passenger count, baggage and the destination field.

Check it at every fleet change rather than at renewal.

4. What actually moves my premium

Claims history, obviously. But also: the fields you operate into, the experience of your crew, your maintenance arrangements, and whether your operation looks organised on paper.

That last one is worth noticing. An operator who can produce procedures, a field record and clean documentation is presenting a different risk from one who cannot, and underwriters price what they can see.

5. What happens with a managed or leased aircraft

Who insures it, whose policy responds first, and what the owner's cover does and does not do.

An operator flying a Drake Bay run at 83.5 nautical miles in somebody else's aircraft should know the answer before the flight rather than discovering it during a claim.

The three gaps operators find late

Cargo, when they start carrying it. Passenger cover does not extend to goods automatically.

Ground handling and movement. Damage that happens with nobody aboard is a category of its own and worth asking about specifically.

And territorial limits. A policy written for one country is valid and useless the moment a leg crosses a border.

All three share a shape: the cover was correct for the business you had when you bought it. The gap opens because the operation changed and the policy did not, which is why the renewal conversation is about what you started doing this year rather than about the premium.

What to do at renewal

Bring your actual year rather than last year's assumptions: the fields you flew, the categories of work you took on, the aircraft that arrived or left.

A Tortuguero transfer at 53.4 nautical miles flown forty times tells an underwriter something a renewal form does not. An operator who arrives with their own information gets a conversation; one who arrives with nothing gets a quote. Operators we bring on evidence current certification, insurance and fleet documentation before receiving a first assignment.

Frequently asked questions

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See also: Hull and liability insurance · Flights to cover insurance · Maintenance and airworthiness to list · For operators