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Suppose you have a collection of miscellaneous airplane parts in your garage and the garage burns down. Your homeowners coverage would cover the loss. Now imagine you take the engine out of your 172 and bring it home to work on it and the garage burns down. You airplane insurance would cover the loss of the engine as it is part of the insured aircraft and your homeowners insurance would cover the garage replacement.

You cannot insure an airplane until you have an airplane to insure. So when does the collection of parts called a kit become an "aircraft"? Good question, IMHO it becomes an aircraft when the FAA says it is capable of fulfilling the role of an aircraft, that is to say it is "Airworthy". Before then it is just parts and airplane parts that are your personal property are usually covered under your homeowners insurance. IMHO builders insurance is a scam and if you did ever have a loss your "airplane" insurance company would likely subrogate to your personal property insurance company anyway.

What I did was to send a letter to my agent telling him I had purchased some airplane parts and asking him to confirm that "airplane parts" are not excluded from my homeowners policy. They were not excluded so, therefore, they were insured for their replacement value WITHOUT PAYING AN ADDITIONAL CENT. I documented the building process so that I could demonstrate the state of the parts in case of loss.

When the FAA inspector came to visit he waved his magic pen and **POOF** my pile of parts became an airplane and I dutifully acquired hull insurance.

Insurance companies LOVE to insure things that are already insured. Just be sure to get your agent to commit in writing or your will be in an argument in the event of loss.

Now that I just saved you $400+/ year, what are you going to do for me??  ;-)

Regards
Brent Regan

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Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.