The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport Board considering a requirement that aircraft owners carry insurance coverage.
Airport Director Dean Selby said he is advocating that the requirement be added to lease agreements.
“Our insurance companies are concerned about it that we don’t have that,” Selby said. “We are one of the only airports now that are left that does not specifically state you must carry the equivalent of liability insurance on an aircraft.”
Board members agreed it did not seem wise for aircraft to operate without insurance. Selby said there could be exceptions, particularly for large companies that self-insure their fleets.
“A lot of these companies are huge anyway, and they probably bond themselves out or self-insure,” Selby said. “But we have a mechanism planned for that where they have documentation that they can provide that.”
The board asked whether insurance limits had been established. Selby said he has been working with the airport’s insurance provider to determine standard coverage limits.
“What I found as we started down this path is that it doesn’t matter whether you are with the VIMCO, which is one of the big aviation insurance companies, or you are with AIG or any of the major companies; all of their policies pretty much run exactly with the same limits and same conditions,” Selby said.
Selby also said he is working with the airport’s attorney to incorporate updated rules and regulation minimum standards into airport policies. Selby said those standards have not been revised since 2009.
The board also briefly discussed adopting its own public comment policy and updating its public records request policy.
“Our public input policy and our public records policy right now is currently, we follow White county’s because the interlocal agreement just says pick the most restrictive,” Selby said. “Well, those are all the same. We have got all four of them, they’re all the same, that’s what we do. The attorney has said that she feels like we should just have our own. Just as we are moving forward, we need to just go ahead and start adopting all of these policies, rather than using that pick the most restrictive so that we have a formal policy to go to.”
Selby said the public records request policy would largely remain unchanged because it is based on the comptroller’s policy handbook. The board took no action on Tuesday as they did not have enough members in attendance for a quorum.