Corporate aviation operators at all levels received good and bad news from insurance representatives at the 26th annual Aviation Insurance Association conference held in Kansas City, Mo., on April 29 and 30. Reports that rates have seemed to stabilize and may even drop in the next year mingled with assertions that the availability of insurance is no longer guaranteed because of the more select nature of the market and because fewer companies are underwriting aviation insurance.
Before September 11, said Alan Beacock, aviation insurance treaty reinsurance team director for Swiss Reinsurance Co. of Zurich, Switzerland, aviation disasters tended to be seen as individual events affecting mostly only the direct carriers of the aviation-related insurance. “Now aviation losses have been seen to accumulate with other lines of business to a far greater degree than we ever would have imagined. Aviation is now seen as adding volatility to the insurer’s portfolio. You cannot protect infinite losses with finite resources.”
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