Originally Posted by
Lifer
It seems to me that the AMA set up the turbine rules and the requirements to get the Wavier because they want the jet flyers to take it seriously. Apparently, many do not. It could be argued that this cavalier attitude towards the established rules is as bad as some of the irresponsible behavior shown by some of the Drone pilots that have gotten so much press lately.
Keep this in mind: Failure to follow the Turbine Wavier guidelines will VOID any coverage by the AMA insurance plan. You will be putting the personal assets of the pilot and likely everyone else there when it happens in jeopardy. I worked for several major insurance carriers and they follow the letter of the contract when claims are involved. Failure to follow fire protection rules will result in a denied claim, period.
Wow - if what you say is true then that is a really rubbish insurance policy that you have in the US.
Generally any incident will fall into one of four categories:
1. You are doing everything right and something happens out of the blue beyond you control
2. You are negligent in some respect and the incident is a result of this negligence.
3. You are recklessly negligent to the point where the incident is a more or less inevitable result of your negligence.
4. The incident is the direct result of a deliberate act by you.
In case 1 there is no liability.
Insurance should cover case 2
Insurance might not cover case 3 - but the threshold to distinguish 3 from 2 is pretty extreme - it takes more than failure to observe one safety guideline on a single occasion. Generally your negligence needs to breach the threshold of legality. Organisations like the AMA can't write laws so failure to follow all the safety guidelines won't take you into that territory. If you followed all the guidelines to the letter then almost all incidents would be type 1 and insurance wouldn't be necessary.
When you say "I worked for several major insurance carriers and they follow the letter of the contract when claims are involved." I'm guessing that you are NOT talking about public liability insurance. In public liability insurance cases the insurance company generally tries to avoid paying by playing down the negligence of the insured and changing the incident to type 1.