cj_rumley

[QUOTE=rcmiket;12253449]No sense to the argument here until there is some understanding about what it means when "AMA rejects a claim." AMA never rejects a liability claim when a court decides in favor of a claimant and the insured was involved in a covered activity when liability was incurred. They can't, nor can any other insurer or they would soon be out of the insurance business and in hot water with the law. AMA like any other insurer can refuse to settle with claimant when they feel their client's case will prevail in civil court. That's not a rejection of the claim, but simple a refusal to settle without a court order. Then the claimant must sue to make his case in court. Refusal to settle is simply a business decision, weighing the cost involved in defending in the court and the projected cost of the possibility of judgement against their client, versus the cost of agreement to settle out-of-court with the claimant. Most of the liability claims against AMA clients are for fairly petty amounts, not worth the cost of defending and so settled. When damage to person or property is substantial, plan on going to court to get compensation. No different whether the insurer is AMA or your HO or PUP provider. Point is AMA doesn't reject claims, only a civil court can do that.

Question remains as to whether the AMA client was covered for the activity he was involved in (as in was it in accord with safety guidance) when he allegedly caused harm to claimant, and whether claimant was himself at least in part responsible for his injury. A case of AMA member getting hit and injured by another AMA member flying at Sepulveda Basin is a case where the primary insurer (not AMA, as is the usual case when the insured also has HO) refused to settle and the case went to trial in civil court. Defense argued that claimant was responsible for his own injury because he was standing too close to the runway. With expert testimony provided by an another AMA member (not sure if he had standing as an agent) the defense prevailed and claimant was denied any compensation by the court. AMA was off the hook, because they are only responsible for amounts awarded after limits of the primary insurer are exhausted, which they weren't since thre was no award to claimant.

In another case also in the Los Angeles area, a UAL pilot that was participating as a mechanic in a u-control race was hit by the model while he was positioned just outside of the circle in order to service it when it broke free of the lines hitting him in the leg causing serious injury. AMA denied his claim, going to court using the "assumed risk" defense, i.e., as a participant the claimant knew the risk but decided to take part in the activity anyway. Claimant's lawyer(s) upped the ante by suing AMA itself (rather than their client), on the claim that the AMA mandated pull test weakened the attachment of the control line to the model aircraft and this was the proximate cause of the incident. Claimant won his case, over $1 mil awarded.

Except for the one case where claimant lost because he wasn't following safety protocol and the second case which was won because AMA's insured did follow the safety rules promulgated by AMA, I'm not aware of any where the safety rules were a factor. Of course as Franklin pointed out, there is paucity of claims data available to make any kind of value judgement about the worth of the insurance. It seems prudent to be mindful of the exclusions in the insurance policy. They are in lettered paragraphs in the policy docs available online at the AMA site and run through nearly the entire alphabet.

A related aside, be cognizant of the fact that local rules made by the club are incorporated into the AMA Safety Code for the site involved. Don't water down your liability coverage with club rules that "somebody just thought was a good idea."