AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2017 - 102

NEWS & NOTES

MEMBER BENEFITS AND SERVICES

AOPA INSURANCE |

Are you covered?

BY JIM PINEGAR

AOPA Insurance Services

Understanding your insurance limits
HAVE YOU EVER STARED BLANKLY at your

insurance policy, trying to understand all
the jargon, unsure of how it all applies to
you? You're not alone. Let's take a scenario and apply your policy.
You and a friend are flying to lunch
when something goes wrong and you
make an emergency landing. A golf
course near your current location has a
nice, long, fairly straight fairway. You're
able to land, but your passenger suffers a serious neck injury; one of your
wings clips a golfer who couldn't grasp
what was happening until it was too late,
knocking him to the ground; and the fairway and your airplane are completely
torn up.
PILOT PROTECTION SERVICES

|

Ask CHAD

What is your risk for stroke?
BY GARY CRUMP

THE LATEST ITERATION in scoring for
stroke risk assessment is CHA2DS2VASc-important to know if you hold a
medical certificate and have a history of
atrial fibrillation (AFIB) not related to
heart valve pathology, or other risk factors
for stroke, or "cerebrovascular accident."
This new scoring system expands on the
previous CHADS2 score by including additional common stroke risk factors. The
names are acronyms for conditions considered when assessing one's risk of stroke.
CHA2DS2-VASc assigns points for
medical history and risk factors that help
your physician (and the FAA) minimize
your risk for a potentially incapacitating
event and to maximize your likelihood
for being issued a medical certificate. The
higher the score, the higher the risk.
* C. If you have a diagnosis of congestive
heart failure or left ventricular dysfunction,
one point is assigned to your risk profile.

102 | AOPA PILOT December 2017

You're looking at bodily injury inside
and outside the aircraft, damage to the golf
course, and damage to your aircraft. Hull
coverage will handle the damage to your
aircraft, but the bodily injury and property
damages will fall under your liability limit:
Smooth limit. With a smooth limit you
have the entire limit amount to address all
three liability claims. This means if you
insured at $1 million smooth, you have the
full $1 million to cover the claims. Policies
with smooth limits are typically more
expensive.
Per passenger sublimit. Coverage for
the passenger is reduced to the limit listed
on the policy. For instance, if you insured at
$1 million with a per passenger sublimit of

* H. For hypertension, another point is
earned, as poorly controlled blood pressure
is a provocateur for stroke risk.
* A2. If you are 75 years of age or older,
the A2 earns 2 points.
* D. Diabetes mellitus is another single
point, and hopefully you have good control
numbers for blood glucose.
* S2 stands for prior stroke, transient
ischemic attack (TIA), or thromboembolism, and an affirmative in that column gets
you two more points.
* V is vascular disease, including a prior
heart attack, peripheral artery disease, or
obstructive blockage in the aorta, and that
is one point.
* A is age 65 to 74, and being under age
75 gets you just one point instead of 2.
* Sc. Finally, the Sc-sex category-
assigns a single point for being female.
The FAA uses the CHA2DS2-VASc
system when evaluating pilots who have a
history of AFIB and are using some form
of anticoagulants. Anticoagulation can
include a daily 81-milligram baby aspirin,
but under the scoring system, aspirin alone
may not be sufficient for medical certification purposes. The FAA allows Coumadin
(warfarin), an anticoagulant that has been

$100,000, the golfer and
the course would be covered under the $1 million; coverage for the
passenger would be limited to $100,000.
Per-person sublimit. Coverage amount
is limited not only for the passenger, but also
for the golfer since each is a "person." For
instance, if you are insured at $1 million with
a per person sublimit of $100,000, the course
would be covered under the $1 million; the
golfer and the passenger would be limited to
a maximum of $100,000. Because per-person sublimits are the most restrictive-and
there's almost never a related premium savings-they should be avoided if possible.
JIM PINEGAR vice president of AOPA

Insurance Services.

around for decades, but use of warfarin
requires periodic blood tests, International
Normalized Ratios (INRs), that should be
in the range of 2.0 to 3.0 for good control.
Other medications that don't require INR
monitoring are Eliquis (apixaban), Pradaxa
(dabigatran), and Xarelto (rivaroxaban).
AFIB is a common arrhythmia in the
aging population, but good control demonstrated by cardiac testing can get you
a special issuance medical certificate for
operations that require a medical.
GARY CRUMP is director of medical certifica-

tion for the AOPA Pilot Information Center.
www.aopa.org/pps

AOPA FINANCE

|

Purchase problems
If you're planning to purchase an aircraft for leaseback to a flying club or
flying school, you'll find most aircraft
lenders are hesitant on a good day and
unwilling on a bad day. Aviation Finance
President Adam Meredith explains why.
www.aopa.org/finance1217
http://www.aopa.org/pps http://www.aopa.org/finance1217
AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2017
