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NAR was pretty much forced into requiring all members to buy the insurance in order for the insurance to remain practical. I have to laugh at the notion that the old $26 optional insurance (under SFA) would simply be whatever the cost if inflation has been since that timeframe. Apples and Pine cones.
The $26 was in conjunction with a Model airplane organization called “SFA”, or Sport Flyers of America. It was a splinter group of ex-AMA members, and a handful of ex-AMA officials, who created an organization in the early to mid-1990’s for just Sport flying model airplaners. For those who did NOT want to support an organization that promoted their own hobby, did not say have to spend any money working on issues with the FAA, or working with the FCC (while AMA was spending their member’s dues on things like keeping model airplanes out of the grubby hands of FAA regulators, and to keep model airplane R/C frequencies from disappearing..... tried to watch any over-the air television on an old analog TV lately???).
SFA was mainly created for the sake of insurance really. Oh, in their P.R., it seemed like they did more, but realistically their purpose to exist was model airplane insurance at a cheaper price than joining AMA. imagine a splinter group from the NAR that only existed for insurance and never dealt with issues like the BATF, FAA, NFPA, Homeland Security, and so forth, because the NAR (and Tripoli) are stuck having to expend their resources to fight those battles while the splinter group “just wanted rocket insurance” and didn’t spend anything on that but perhaps lip service (If you think we will never ever have to deal with BATF again in any other matters, I have a bridge in Brooklyn and a bunch of Enertek kits to sell you....).
Now, where is the NAR connection? Well, we have to go back thru the time machine many years prior, to some time in the mid 1970’s or so. The NAR started getting its insurance thru AMA. Pretty much piggybacking rocket insurance thru AMA’s insurance program. So, THIS made it practical for insurance to be an option. The part of the insurance that NAR members had to pay was a very small fraction of what AMA membership cost.
Then time moves on, and so did some of the more NAR-friendly members of the AMA board. Indeed, former NAR board member (and former AMA board member) John Worth was one of those who formed SFA. Anyway, the AMA kept increasing how much NAR members would have to pay to get insurance, not just inflation but a greater and greater percentage of what AMA dues were.
Finally, the AMA stopped giving a “deal” at all, and required NAR members to pay to be full AMA members to get any rocket insurance. IIRC, the cost of an NAR membership, plus the cost of an AMA membership.... was close to or perhaps more than the cost of an NAR membership TODAY. But I'm talking about 15 years or so back in time here, and that does not include inflation (I do not recall what year NAR left AMA for SFA).
BUT, the deal was even more lopsided because the value of the insurance (payout for any claims) for rockets was a fraction of the payout for model airplane claims. I cannot recall the numbers, but it was something like model airplanes, 2 million dollars, model rockets 200,000 dollars (10% of the model airplane coverage).
Sort of like Lando Calrissian in “Empire Strikes Back”, the NAR’s deal with AMA was getting worse all the time......
Oh, and I left out the fact that AMA rocket insurance was only for model rockets (and LMR’s). Not HPR IIRC.
So now, we rejoin the SFA story, when Lando, I mean the NAR, escaped from Vader’s, I mean AMA’s, worse and worse deals.
SFA offered rocket insurance to the NAR at a better deal than AMA, and it is on an equal footing with their model airplane coverage, not 10% coverage like AMA’s was. One little oddity was SFA required “clubs” to have at least three people to have SFA insurance in order for a club to buy club insurance for an extra fee (I do not recall the club insurance fee but it was pretty reasonable, about the cost of one SFA membership).
So, the SFA deal was a darned good one for the NAR for as long as SFA lasted, which was a few years starting in the mid 1990’s. Then the SFA went away and the NAR had to find alternative means of insurance.
The only practical way for the NAR to do it was to require all members to have insurance. The insurance costs were too high to leave it as an option, since the insurance company was going to charge the NAR the same lump sum for coverage whether 4 thousand, 5 thousand, 1 thousand, or 1 hundred NAR members bought insurance.
So, there is no such thing as to make insurance optional again where those who choose not to buy insurance can do that, and those who DO buy it can pay for a full NAR membership at “just” $65 a year. Because the NAR would go broke at the current dues rate, as the NAR has to pay the insurance company that same lump sum, regardless how many members might want it. So if say half the NAR members did not buy insurance the other half would have to pay a lot more than $65 to get membership WITH insurance.
The one break given in this regard is for the Junior and Leader memberships, in order to try to make it more practical for JR and LR members to be able to afford being an NAR member.
Take note that all the above is from memory and I may have gotten some details incorrect, but the above is the gist of it.
OK, after writing the above I looked up SFA and oddly enough only found a link to an announcement by Mark Bundick when SFA went away.
https://www.rocketryplanet.com/content/view/410/92/
I had forgotten that the insurance was always calendar year, Jan 1st thru Dec 31st, regardless of NAR membership expiration date (because that is how AMA did it and how SFA did it).
Geoge Gassaway
The $26 was in conjunction with a Model airplane organization called “SFA”, or Sport Flyers of America. It was a splinter group of ex-AMA members, and a handful of ex-AMA officials, who created an organization in the early to mid-1990’s for just Sport flying model airplaners. For those who did NOT want to support an organization that promoted their own hobby, did not say have to spend any money working on issues with the FAA, or working with the FCC (while AMA was spending their member’s dues on things like keeping model airplanes out of the grubby hands of FAA regulators, and to keep model airplane R/C frequencies from disappearing..... tried to watch any over-the air television on an old analog TV lately???).
SFA was mainly created for the sake of insurance really. Oh, in their P.R., it seemed like they did more, but realistically their purpose to exist was model airplane insurance at a cheaper price than joining AMA. imagine a splinter group from the NAR that only existed for insurance and never dealt with issues like the BATF, FAA, NFPA, Homeland Security, and so forth, because the NAR (and Tripoli) are stuck having to expend their resources to fight those battles while the splinter group “just wanted rocket insurance” and didn’t spend anything on that but perhaps lip service (If you think we will never ever have to deal with BATF again in any other matters, I have a bridge in Brooklyn and a bunch of Enertek kits to sell you....).
Now, where is the NAR connection? Well, we have to go back thru the time machine many years prior, to some time in the mid 1970’s or so. The NAR started getting its insurance thru AMA. Pretty much piggybacking rocket insurance thru AMA’s insurance program. So, THIS made it practical for insurance to be an option. The part of the insurance that NAR members had to pay was a very small fraction of what AMA membership cost.
Then time moves on, and so did some of the more NAR-friendly members of the AMA board. Indeed, former NAR board member (and former AMA board member) John Worth was one of those who formed SFA. Anyway, the AMA kept increasing how much NAR members would have to pay to get insurance, not just inflation but a greater and greater percentage of what AMA dues were.
Finally, the AMA stopped giving a “deal” at all, and required NAR members to pay to be full AMA members to get any rocket insurance. IIRC, the cost of an NAR membership, plus the cost of an AMA membership.... was close to or perhaps more than the cost of an NAR membership TODAY. But I'm talking about 15 years or so back in time here, and that does not include inflation (I do not recall what year NAR left AMA for SFA).
BUT, the deal was even more lopsided because the value of the insurance (payout for any claims) for rockets was a fraction of the payout for model airplane claims. I cannot recall the numbers, but it was something like model airplanes, 2 million dollars, model rockets 200,000 dollars (10% of the model airplane coverage).
Sort of like Lando Calrissian in “Empire Strikes Back”, the NAR’s deal with AMA was getting worse all the time......
Oh, and I left out the fact that AMA rocket insurance was only for model rockets (and LMR’s). Not HPR IIRC.
So now, we rejoin the SFA story, when Lando, I mean the NAR, escaped from Vader’s, I mean AMA’s, worse and worse deals.
SFA offered rocket insurance to the NAR at a better deal than AMA, and it is on an equal footing with their model airplane coverage, not 10% coverage like AMA’s was. One little oddity was SFA required “clubs” to have at least three people to have SFA insurance in order for a club to buy club insurance for an extra fee (I do not recall the club insurance fee but it was pretty reasonable, about the cost of one SFA membership).
So, the SFA deal was a darned good one for the NAR for as long as SFA lasted, which was a few years starting in the mid 1990’s. Then the SFA went away and the NAR had to find alternative means of insurance.
The only practical way for the NAR to do it was to require all members to have insurance. The insurance costs were too high to leave it as an option, since the insurance company was going to charge the NAR the same lump sum for coverage whether 4 thousand, 5 thousand, 1 thousand, or 1 hundred NAR members bought insurance.
So, there is no such thing as to make insurance optional again where those who choose not to buy insurance can do that, and those who DO buy it can pay for a full NAR membership at “just” $65 a year. Because the NAR would go broke at the current dues rate, as the NAR has to pay the insurance company that same lump sum, regardless how many members might want it. So if say half the NAR members did not buy insurance the other half would have to pay a lot more than $65 to get membership WITH insurance.
The one break given in this regard is for the Junior and Leader memberships, in order to try to make it more practical for JR and LR members to be able to afford being an NAR member.
Take note that all the above is from memory and I may have gotten some details incorrect, but the above is the gist of it.
OK, after writing the above I looked up SFA and oddly enough only found a link to an announcement by Mark Bundick when SFA went away.
https://www.rocketryplanet.com/content/view/410/92/
I had forgotten that the insurance was always calendar year, Jan 1st thru Dec 31st, regardless of NAR membership expiration date (because that is how AMA did it and how SFA did it).
Geoge Gassaway
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