Mr. Flug,

I have a somewhat unique perspective on this for the following two reasons.

First of all I am an AMA contest director and run several large, successful contests each year. Second I just finished a two year stint as the president of a large (250 member) club that is NOT AMA sanctioned.

A couple of points to ponder

From a property owner or club's point of view, how are they to determine the validity and value of 'different' insurance companies. From your perspective any shmoe can show up at any field and say they have insurance with XYZ company. How is one to know what is valid and what is invalid.

I can tell you with a high level of certainty that that attitude is not only irresponsible but would certainly lead to the greatest levels of harm to our hobby.

While I don't agree with the AMA on a lot of issues, I do think that them as a single source of insurance is a very effective way to handle things.

The AMA states that their cost of insurance is under 5.00 per member. (in past years) I would tend to agree with that figure. The largest local club in this area is not an AMA club and is self-insuring. Their published cost of insurance per member is about the same.

Unfortunately all of the members that choose to be only members of the club and not the AMA can only fly at that field. Non club members must have an AMA membership in order to fly.

Each additional insurance carrier that is added adds to the level of complexity and opens up another opportunity for huge problems to crop up.

Looking at it another way, it appears that the cost of insurance is about the same, what about all of the other benefits that AMA membership provide?? I know that you seem to not appreciate them but some of us do.

I would make a suggestion, instead of trying to undermine a good thing, perhaps a better approach would be to get involved and try and work for change from inside.

Fragmenting will only cause problems and with all of the other issues we as aeromodelers are facing, why cause problems now?

I work at every meeting to convince the members of my club to become AMA members. We are now over 65% AMA members. I hope that one day we will be at 100%.

Finally, I doubt you will have much luck and success in either getting underwritten or in finding many followers - beyond a few grass roots band wagon jumpers.