Nick if gas is so cheap then why have people quit flying? It can't be the price of maintenance for I have not raised my shop rate in over five years. There is something fundamentally wrong here. And for the price of fuel in the UK I think your health care is funded with that, correct me if I'm wrong. I pay $1000.00 a month for health insurance and that does not cover everything so counting that, our gas price would be more than the UK.
Bottom line for me is bankruptcy.
Rick: I didn't say it was cheap, I said it was only fractionally more than it was 26 years ago in today's $. I think a lot of people quit because their hull and liability insurance went way up (100% in 4 years in some cases) and their personal insurance also either went through the roof, or the underwriters either canceled their policies or compelled them to sign what we in the trade* call an
ER (Exclusion Rider), meaning that they would not be covered from the moment of getting in their plane to the moment they got out after a flight. Many people are not willing to take the risk of having no coverage while in the air.
I sold my 1/3 share of the Bonanza because the insurance, that was bad enough when I was in my 60s, went sky-high once I passed age 70. My other partners said I had to pay half of the total because my part equalled their combined parts of the total. However, I still fly rentals whenever I get the urge and feel like blowing $200 or so.
*I took my PA and DE insurance licenses a few years ago and opened the
O'Dell Insurance Agency - no, really, I'm not joking for once. I only do this a couple of days a week, but it's fun, interesting and doubles my Social Security income.
I sell health insurance to small business owners, families and individuals through a non-profit group called the Small Business Association (sbaamerica.com), and I can often save people currently insured with the "biggies" like Aetna, BlueXBlue Shield, Cigna etc. anything up to 60%
provide that they pay for the smaller stuff themselves, and accept a larger deductible.
In other words, they buy an insurance policy for the same reason that they have an auto or house (or plane) policy, to protect themselves against financial catastrophe in the case of a serious illness or accident. Think about it; your auto insurance doesn't pay for oil changes or to repair your tranny; you do. If you get a small fender-bender, you probably take it to the body shop and pay the $500-750 rather than put in a claim, only part of which is met after the deductible, which will probably put your premium rates up too if you file a claim. But people pay exorbitant rates because they expect their medical insurer to pay for the smaller (I didn't say small) things instead of paying them themselves.
The best medical insurance compromise is the one where you might have, for example, a $5,000 deductible. You'd pay the $400 or so if you went to the E.R., rather than submitting a claim, but would only have to meet that $5,000 out of a $100,000 bill for a major medical or injury event.
My wife and I pay 76,000 Colombian Pesos per month, which is equivalent to about $38.00 USD. The copay for an appointment to see a doctor, or most medications, is about $1.. USD.
