Chauncey Crail, an FAA-Certified Flight Instructor, explains why the new SkyWatch aircraft renter’s insurance is ideal for flight schools, CFIs, and aviation students.
The least fun part of flight training is the cost. Adding a top-of-climb waypoint to the detailed flight plans your CFI wants you to do by hand on your father’s E6B would be a lot more fun if you weren’t paying so much for the rentals, instruction, fuel, gear, books and insurance required to earn a private certificate. As a CFI, I leap at every opportunity to save students money because my wallet still remembers the trauma I subjected it to when I learned to fly.
For pre-solo students renting aircraft from flight schools or FBOs, paying a $300+ annual insurance premium equates to a valuable couple of hours of training. When you’re at solo stage, every minute in the plane can help with learning how crucial the pitch-power relationship is on approach or how important looking down the runway is during landing. SkyWatch provides aircraft rental insurance with daily, weekly or monthly coverage to help reduce the initial costs of training and keep you in the air.
Save on Sky-High Premiums and Pay Only When You Fly
With coverage only when my students actually need it, SkyWatch’s more flexible option makes flight training more accessible from takeoff. Training all summer but only going solo once a week? Purchase coverage only for the days you solo and save hundreds in premium costs during the weeks or months you’re training. Trying to accelerate your career-oriented flight training? You don’t need a year’s coverage when most of your first several hundred hours will be with a CFI like me sitting beside you—you only need a few weeks’ coverage when you build those extra hours on your own.
Add SkyWatch to Your Preflight
SkyWatch provides an easy-to-use website to make obtaining flexible-term coverage a breeze from the ramp or FBO lounge. Premium quotes account for your training, ratings and flight hours to ensure you’ll receive the least expensive option possible.
Simply spend a few minutes ensuring you have all the coverages you need and you can quickly go back to checking the three dozen different weather apps you’ve downloaded instead of worrying about whether or not you’re covered.
An Affordable Option Without the Hassle
Depending on your experience level and what coverages you need, SkyWatch’s premiums can start from as low as $2.50 a day, $7 for a month and $75 a year. The flexibility of SkyWatch’s policies means you can increase or decrease liability coverage depending on what you need. If a specific club requests a specific liability coverage or if I’m borrowing my friend’s fancy backcountry toys, I can increase my policy to make sure everything I do is covered—without paying for the extra coverage year-round. Check with your flight school, club or CFI to find out exactly what you need.
See-and-Avoid Costly Renter’s Insurance Premiums With SkyWatch
Choose a weekly or monthly basis to see if you can save money using SkyWatch’s on-demand coverage options here. On-demand coverage may not be for everyone, but the opportunity to save on unnecessary coverage can save many pilots enough to replace the fancy aviators they keep leaving in faraway FBOs—something I’m told everyone else definitely also experiences.
