Hofer to Speak at NBAA Tax, Regulatory & Risk Management Conference

Stephen Hofer, President and Founder of the Aerlex Law Group and Aerlex Tax Services, LLC of Los Angeles, will lead a panel discussion regarding “Managing Business Aviation Risk: From Policies to Procedures” at the 2018 National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Tax, Regulatory & Risk Management Conference on Monday, October 15, 2018 in Orlando, Florida.

Hofer, who is a member of the NBAA Tax Committee that sponsors the annual conference, will be joined on the dais by Todd Guelich, Senior Vice President of AirSure Limited, and Greg Stock, Aviation Claims Manager of Versant.

In explaining the goals of his panel, Hofer said “We are seeing the first significant changes in the aviation insurance industry in many years and we want the people who attend the conference to understand that. The soft, static aviation insurance market of the past decade is no more. There are a lot of reasons for this and we’ll talk about the causes during our presentation, but the bottom line is that the general aviation industry, including both corporate aircraft operators and Part 135 charter and management companies, should anticipate a harder insurance market in the future with higher premiums and limits on available coverage.”

Hofer continued, “In addition to some market forecasting, we are also going to talk about other trends in the area of risk avoidance and risk shifting. Aircraft owners need to understand that vendors at every level are doing whatever they can to minimize their own liability and aircraft owners may find that their recourse, even for damage vendors cause themselves, may be limited by contracts, hold harmless and indemnification agreements, and the insurance policies issued to third parties. So corporate aircraft owners need to be realistic about the level of risk they are essentially ‘self-insuring’.”

The Tax, Regulatory & Risk Management Conference, which begins on October 14th, precedes NBAA’s annual Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (BACE), which runs from October 16 through 18 in Orlando. For more information regarding the Tax, Regulatory & Risk Management Conference, click here.