I think it would be a BAD move. The AMA insurance is Secondary Insurance. This means the racers, lake owners or clubs insurance would pay for any claims then the AMA would cover the rest. I do believe this would make most of the lake owners say "Sorry but you can't race here any more" and clubs will be dieing because of no ponds to run on.
My 2 cents
Buddy Benedict
Buddy and all,
A little understanding here.
1. AMA insurance is secondary for the individual member only if you already have some type of liability in force (homeowners/work)
if you have no other liability coverage then AMA is primary. If you think that IMPBA insurance being primary means a victim won't go after your personal homeowners policy you're wrong.
2. AMA insurance is primary to all others involved, property owners, clubs, and additional insured, and it's healty, that's why we (AMA) do not have trouble easing the minds of most land owners whom we fly from. Think about it for a minute, flying model airplanes and heli's is at least 10 times more liability risk than running model boats and a large majority of model flying is done on a non-participating person's property. Obviously our (AMA) liability coverage is very strong, along with our safety record.
3. AMA insurance is in force 24/7/365, from my understanding IMPBA insurance is only in force during sanctioned events at sanctioned ponds. If you're testing at Joe Bag of Doughnuts farm pond, or at the city park lake, you're not covered. The IMPBA pays quite a chunk of money for "part time" insurance.
I won't go into all the other coverage you get with AMA like Theft, Fire, Vandalism, emergency care, etc, this is an effort to keep it simple.
If you want to check things out go to
http://www.modelaircraft.org/
just a boater trying to help
gh