A few years back, a Cessna 172 pilot had trouble starting his airplane and decided to hand-prop it near the Typhoon restaurant at the Santa Monica airport. No one was inside the Skyhawk. The engine spun up, and the airplane made a solo trip across runway 21. In the process, it made a business jet go around and entered a hangar on the other side of the runway. The propeller proceeded to chop up the fuselage of a Beechcraft Baron that was parked inside the hangar.
At the time, an annual insurance policy on a Cessna 172 would have been around $1,000. The claim was likely in the hundreds of thousands. There are not many products you purchase that you hope to never use. But insurance truly fits that profile. And the owner of that Skyhawk was likely very happy to have it.
