Insurance is common. I'm not aware of it being mandatory anywhere but
it never occurred to me to go without it so I didn't check. It is
reasonable in cost and not hard to get. They want to see a survey and
some sailing references so, if I'd said, "I just bought this boat and
I don't know nuttin'.", I might not have gotten the insurance.

I made a comment on jury behavior in another thread. Aviation
judgements go through the roof compared similar injury in other
activities. It's not just the pilots insurance but the costs past on
in the cost of everything else. About 20% of the cost of an airplane
is the manufacturer's liability insurance load.

Here's a classic (and true) story:

Kid gets his license on his 16 th birthday. The parents let him load
up the family plane with three friends his age. The go out and start
buzzing cars up the mountain canyon highways in California. The NTSB
report relates how they were followed across the state by police
reports and the state police were out in cars and other aircraft
looking for them. Finally, they flew into some powerlines that were
not marked because no one ever thought a plane would be down that low
in the canyon.

The mother spent ten years suing Cessna (the builder of the aircraft)
and won!

NTSB reports in this country are not admissible in court. This is
designed to keep the NTSB staff out making aviation safer instead of
being the full time, taxpayer paid, witnesses they would be if the
reports were admitted. The plane type had an occasional fuel flow
vapor interruption issue that was covered in the handbook and the
instructions for dealing with it by turning on a boost pump were
placarded on the panel. Never the less, a number of pilots had
previously gotten over excited when the engine stopped and forgotten
about the instructions in the book and on the panel. The mother's
lawyers just kept hammering away at this issue and these incidents
until he got a jury to believe that the plane hit the wires because it
was gliding down after the engine quit.

Yes, I suspect that things are very different on your side of the
pond.

--

Roger Long