I quoted this part of your post, but I thought your entire post was outstanding.

My interest is model aviation and AMA is focused on, promotes and protects my interests in this hobby.

My renewal is assured for a long long time because I am happy that there is someone out there looking out for me and my interests.

Thanks for doing such a great job with your post!

And that's why I ask. I have seen and heard so many different interpretations of AMA's insurance coverage, and whether home owner's policies will cover a modeler. I wonder about the truth. I fear many people are making assumptions about their AMA or home owner's policies that may not be true.

For the record, I'm not trying to give a reason not to join AMA. And my wife would be amazed if she thought I was thinking too much! I like being in the AMA, and will probably always renew. I like having an organization looking out for my hobby concerns. I just haven't thought much about the insurance since getting into the hobby four years ago. I joined a club that requires AMA, played by the rules, and commenced learning, building, flying. But now I'd like to get some clarification as to what's what.

The best description of the AMA coverage, written in plain English, is in the Club Charter Renewal Pakage on the AMA site at http://www.modelaircraft.org/PDF-files/2005clubkit.pdf . If what you want is the actual liability policy, it, also, is on the AMA site at http://www.modelaircraft.org/PDF-files/500-l.pdf .

If, after reading those you still have questions, they should be directed to Carl Maroney at AMA headquarters. He is always helpful. One thing though... he does not answer what if questions. I think you can guess why.

J_R,
I read those 2 links and now I have a headache. Geez. All your fault.
This is directed to the insurance guy. I'm a bit surprised you made no mention of a homeowner getting a rider or a policy that lets a guy be covered doing what he wants.
This is for the fellas that believe the AMA is the last line of defense for our hobby. The AMA is forbidden by Federal Law to lobby for anything at anytime. They may attend public forums in the same manner as private citizens. As a 501 (C) (3) they have rules to follow just like everyone else. And one thing to remember is the AMA represents a small number of people at 165,000 and shrinking. The people that are going to defend us is the manufacturer's of the equipment we use. From the radios and receivers that we buy to all the accessories that they require, the stick planes, the arfs, engine's, motors, boats, cars and everything else. Our saviour is BIG BUSINESS. And BIG TAX DOLLARS.
In reading one of the links J_R posted I may have gotten a bit dizzy and missed the part where the AMA covered you flying anywhere except in a sanctioned AMA Club field or the airspace directly over your house. Cross your street and it looks like you are not covered. The AMA's main claim is insurance. The first link from J_R gives the clue. Insurance at the top, Rules from the AMA in the middle and money at the end or something like that. The AMA card is needed to fly at clubs. All fine and good. Lots of good clubs out there. Something bad happens at an AMA club, you're safe. I'd rather fly at the Basin and put my trust in the people allowed to put their money where their mouth is. Legally.

Thanks for the links J_R. I did try to get them at the AMA site last night. But it got late, and I ended up looking like Loubud's avatar this morning anyway. I'll study some more tonight.

Bruno,
I think I got some bad coffee.

Where does it say you MUST fly at a sanctioned field??????????????????????????????????????

There are a good many of members who do not and cannot drive loooooooong distances to an AMA field. IT IS NOT IN THE RULES! that I am reading

Here is the basic concept... on liability for the general AMA membership (excludes other AMA policies like medical, theft, fire, optical, dental and witchburning, and anything else).

There are, esentially three sets of coverage.

The one for individuals is excess (read a secondary) and comes after any other insurance, such as home owners or renters. It covers you anywhere you may legally fly if you follow the AMA Safety Code. The fact that it is excess coverage is what keeps the price low. Most claims are covered by homeowers or renters liability policies.

The second is also excess. It covers clubs and their officers. It has many limitations and the officers of clubs should be aware of the limitations. Things like libel and slander are not covered, for instance.

The third is the truly important one. It is a full blown liability policy for the named land owner. Not subject to the Safety Code, or other restrictions that are on the members and clubs. This is the one that allows so many clubs to be able to secure a field.

This is general in nature and not meant to be all encompassing. Technical questions can be directed to HQ.

Thanks, J_R. I was looking for another cup of coffee. I might have confused one part of the insurance. On page 41 or 42 Was a mention of roads and railroads and whether you owned or rented them. I mistook what was actually said. I had thought it meant that if flying over a farm like I do, to be covered I need written permission from the owner to do so and still be covered by the AMA insurance. Any misleading statement made by me is taken back. Sorry. Forget I said it. Hit the delete but or panic button if you have one.

So basically, as I read what JR is posting, unless you have a homeowners policy or some other type of insurance that covers you while you are flying, the AMA policy wont help you, because it is "excess" coverage, and only covers over and above what the pilot's other policy does not. It only covers the club, it's officers, and the NAMED LANDOWNER. By the way, I spoke with my agent this morning, and as he reads the definitions in my policy, the term "aircraft" covers unmanned, R/C planes as well as full scale. Therefore, they are excluded from coverage. That's what I figured to start with.

Loubud

Interestingly, what you thought you read is what it says. The posted policy has errors and changes have been/are being made, including an elimination of the requirment for a written agreement with the landlord. Permission is enough, it does not have to be evidenced in writing, or so I have been led to believe. BTW, this stuff is in the current appendicies of the EC Minutes for the 10/05 meeting.

Why the AMA does not post this stuff for their membership is beyond me. I guess they enjoy RCU too.

Lowlevlflyer

NO. If you have no other coverage, the AMA policy becomes primary.

Second item. Call your insurance company. The entire basis of the AMA being able to put together the insurance package is that aircraft are defined by insurance companies as being able to transport a person, or words to that affect. Agents, unfortunately, are typically sales people with a limited knowledge of their product, IMHO.

Years ago, my agent told me the same as yours did. I called the company and was told differently. Some, and I believe Horrace is one, makes his agent put it in writing that he is covered. Another ploy that has worked for some is to ask the agent for a quote of coverage for your models. In every case I have seen, the agent has had to come back and say "I made an error, you are covered".

Having said all that, every state is different, and even the wording from company to company can be different.

Lowlevlflyer

Better yet, Call the AMA at 1 800 I FLY AMA and talk to Carl Maroney (ext 250). If he is not in, talk to his assistant, Ilona Maine at Ext 251.

In any case, let us know how you come out.

Carl is out of the office until Dec. 5th, but you may contact his assistant, Ilona, or Amy Wilson.

Thanks for the info, I'll check into it a bit further ASAP.

Most interestingly, it appears that when AMA differs with what the written insurance contract says, the written contract has errors..........

That appears to have been the case regarding not being covered by AMA insurance in the case of a shoot-down due to switching on a transmitter on a frequency already in use. Hoss reported on this, citing what Maroney had said at a conference gathering (SWAC, IIRC). Hoss got shouted down and Maroney provided 'clarification,' but it appears what Hoss recorded was right all along, at least according to the written contract for insurance which states under Exclusions, Para T., page 13:

""Property damage" arising from from frequency interference of of any model airplane.
However the exclusion does not apply to AMA Inc. sanctioned events where there is a control transmitter impound area and the interference is the result of event organizer error."

My recollection is that Maroney's 'clarification' was that he was only talking about the situation where there was a transmitter impound, yet the contract clearly says that's the only situation where the exclusion does not apply.

Tell people to call Maroney about insurance issues if you will, but I'm conditioned to relying on what it says in the contract. AMA apparently has a rather unconventional way of doing business in their relationship with Westchester, but I'm more comfortable with the old-fashioned pro forma business relationship I have with GEICO for my PUP.

Abel

Yes JR many years ago I did that. However now USAA (United Services Auto Association, San Antonio, TX) in their policies excludes all hobby model aircraft from any and all general AVIATION exclusions. Modelers are covered. Incidentally USAA is not just an Auto insurance , as they are now a full function financial institution.

As a plug if you are, or have been a commissioned officer (and now I think non-com.) in any U.S. service, you can become a member of USAA. I joined in '55 when an Aviation Cadet. (Darn, it's been a short 50 years!) Dependents and former dependents of members can be become a member of a subsidiary of USAA. My kids, their mother, and one of my wife's kids are members. USAA may be a tad expensive as to certain other insurance carriers, however the return-of-capital rebates -- a kind of profit sharing -- more than make up for it. In addition there is immediate coverage when you have a claim. Plus RC IS COVERED FOR LIABILITY purposes.

Different time, different contract, different insurance company, but... it is a good idea to keep your umbrella policy. I am glad you are conditioned to relying on the wording of a contract. I tend to do that myself, but... when the changes are noted in the appendicies of the offical minutes of the organization, I figure lawyers can rely on that. You have been requesting the appendices, haven't you?

JR-

FWIW, it was during SWAC 2003. Hoss's report included: "see One BIG Point: If A turns-on on B, and B causes injury/damage to C, then B is protected, however if A gets sued by C and/or B, A is all on his own – SO USE GOOD PROTECTION – USE SAFE FREQUENCY!!! (Note: This point was presented by CM in the Briefing,and in the Question/Answer session, I asked several questions to be certain I for certain understood the point.)"

I thought it was the same insurance company, could be wrong. Regardless, it appears that for as long as Westchester has held the contract, you have not been covered if you got into a liability situation due to interference from another source, AMA member or not (it was an excerpt from the current contract from Westchester, posted on the AMA site, that I cited). Only exception would be if at an AMA sanctioned event with an impound, and the impound manager screwed up.

As for changes noted in the appendices to the EC minutes, these were identified as pending requests to the insurance company for a change in terms, and do not represent what is covered until the time those requests, if made, are honored.

You tell me - if your twiddling in the pits causes interference that results in crashing somebody's model airplane into a limo full of fat lawyer's wives on the way to the Golden Door spa resulting in a head-on collision with a ready-mix truck, are you covered here and now?

I will hang on to my PUP - it has but one exclusion: my models aren't covered if they can carry human passengers - hamsters are okay. It's a lot easier to remember that than all the wormholes in the AMA coverage built in by lawyers and lawyer wannabes in Munchie.

Abel

Hi Abel

If you thought the previous post contained goofy info, here is more. The first year that Westchester had the policy (3/04 IIRC), there was no written policy. Also remember that the policy begins and ends on March 31, which is club renewal time and the reason for the date. Look at the date on the "most recent" policy... 5/22/05 for the period of 3/31/05 to 3/31/06. If I understand a conversation I had, the reason the changes did not take place sooner was because there was no policy to look at. Again, if I understand correctly, the first year or so, the agreement was based on the previous carrier's policy.

As far as I can see, from what I have been told, the AMA did a pretty good job of picking up the errors. At the same time, legally, we were covered. As you know, I have been shooting arrows at the EC lately, but this is not one of the targets, IMHO.

Hi JR-

Please expound on that point, if you would. As I see it, the written insurance contract says coverage is excluded, yet you say, according to what you have been told, we were covered legally.
Honestly, I think that calls for some tall explanation, if we are to swallow it without choking.

Abel

Abel

What I posted was as close as I can get to repeating the actual conversations involved. Some of the conversations go back well over a year and I don't recall enough of the verbage to approximate the true words.

Hmmm. LOL.... LOL.... Uh....

Would you settle for calling Carl and asking for the details? I can give you the 800 number.

edit: It truly was no secret. Some of the coversations, with different individuals, took place in front of dozens of AMA members at the AMA convention in Ontario.

Abel, when I said we were covered legally, I explicitly meant that we were covered without a written contract. I guess that is not the way you took it. If you are talking about the particular coverage, it was my understanding that the coverage was the same as the previous carrier's wording until the wording from Westchester was approved by both parties to the new policy. The changes the AMA wanted and requested are/were part of that process. I do not know if the final version has been agreed to. That is one, but, only one of the reason I have not read the policy completely.

Couple of points . . .

AMA is indeed prohibited from lobbying, and that is as it should be for a 501(c)3 entity. AMA is _not_ prohibited from representing it's membership, and by extension of AMA's mission, model aviation in general, by participating in working groups and meeting with sundry Federal agencies (FAA and FCC, for example) to provide facts, offer opinion, supply information and to answer questions. AMA is also not prohibited from participating in the NPRM process used by those agencies - AMA is properly participating in the NPRM process for the BPL issue, along with ARRL (another 501(c)3 organization keenly interested in BPL interference problems for _their_ members - the ham radio bunch). AMA is participating in the working groups which have come to exist in relation to FAA's stated intent to put UAVs under increased regulation, and that is as it should be as well, although I do wonder if AMA is putting sufficient effort into that particular process.

What we do NOT see are hobby industry entities participating in the majority of these 'advisory' processes, except where the processes might impact their product line.

If you think Futaba spends much time or money on BPL, guess again. The radio control portion of Futaba's world-wide business base is a fraction of a percentage point at best. JR, HiTec, and FMA have more at stake with respect to BPL than Futaba. IMHO there are only two _big_ businesses in the r/c hobby arena, Hobbico and Horizon. Yes there are other companies which have grown to considerable size, but none of them are anywhere nearly as large or do as much business world-wide as Hobbico or Horizon. OS might be participating in the advisory process, but probably not Zenoah - their real business is industrial engines very much larger than the noise makers we use.

With respect to the companies heavily involved in the FAA-UAV advisory process, Tower, Hobbico, and Futaba don't total up to rival Boeing or Lockheed, and so don't "weigh in" quite as heavily when it comes to offering opinion which might influence critical issues or decisions. Worse, none of the large model airplane business entities have any experience at all in the technical aspects of FAA regulation, nor of the processes by which those regulations come to exist.

The good thing in all this is that FAA doesn't seem keenly interested in regulating our toys _right now_, and BPL installations are very buisily demonstrating to FCC that the subject is a really big can of worms the FCC should never have opened in the first place. We're probably 'safe' on those two problem areas, for the near term anyway.

I don't put a whole lot of stock in the notion that big hobby businesses are going to help keep AMA functioning, and take the view that by and large we are on our own.

Ooooooooookay............

If you're all right with that, fine by me. I'm not, and the abuse of the AMA insurance policy to turn Dave Brown policy into AMA policy doesn't help matters a bit in my mind. But, assessing insurance needs is a personal matter, except as dictated by others for participation in just one activity that I know of, so do your own thing.

Abel