Insurance

Is here anyone from Europe (or USA) who has his multirotor insured in case of a crash?

 

Have you been lucky with getting commercial insurance and with whom?

 

I am looking at Aerial Pak and it seems to me that if you fly commercially you have NO liability insurance:

Standard General Liability policies will exclude damage arising from the operation of aircraft; Aerial PakTM includes coverage for Remote Controlled Aerial Photography equipment provided the maximum payload does not exceed 25 pounds and the aircrafts engine delivers under eight (8) horsepower.

 

AerialPak is the only thing out there right now in this category, and yet it's unclear if they'd cover a strictly "commercial" liability claim. But it makes my clients feel better.

Hopefully this will all be better soon. Sigh.

 

Any developments with regards to liability coverage? Anyone have to make a claim yet? I sincerely hope not, but if so... I'm especially curious how worried people are shooting real estate. It's likely the fastest growing segment of the market and lots of people shooting or advertising to shoot it. And the type of real estate that requires AP ain't cheap. How scared are people if/when they crash into a home and Aerial Pak gives em the finger?

How much does having an LLC protect the owner/operator if insurance doesn't come through?

 

Hi all. I'm an aviation insurance specialist who has several liability-only insurance options readily available for UAV/UAS. We insure under aviation insurance policies with aviation insurers. These are all A to A++ rated aviation and aerospace insurers.

$1,000,000 liability-only with worldwide territory covering liability for aerial photo, filming and production for hire. No commercial exclusions and all policies specifically include the commercial coverage. Policies have no weight limit and no horsepower or thrust limit. This is a combined limit of bodily injury and property damage with no aggregate or sub-limit. Also includes non-owned liability in case you hire a sub or sub out business to another operator that might come back to haunt you. We can also include products liability for the sale of the UAV.

We can also do higher valued hull physical damage on a case by case basis but that is going to require more underwriting information and some solid background and experience.

www.facebook.com/uavinsurance or www.transportrisk.com I also post in the UAV groups on Linkedin

 

Hi Terry,

Sent an email to you requesting a quotation.

Thanks,
Jeffrey

 

Thank you all for the positive responses and professionalism with which the members of this forum have shown to us and our team.

Terry

 

Hi Andy,

Sorry Andy, I replied to your message but the email went to spam. Just replied to your email.
Best,

Terry

 

Here's a quick follow-up. We had some problems insuring CineStar and DJI S800's etc due to their lack of serial numbers. We have now resolved that issue with a small vinyl security label and numbering system. Insurers have universally accepted our system therefore as long as owners agree to affix the label(s) we can insure the aircraft for hull and liability or liability only.

Let me know if I can ever help with anything at all.

Best regards,

Terry

 

Hi Terry,
I just completed an application for your UAV liability insurance. Despite what you are saying about no commercial exclusions, the very bottom line before the signature states in bold:

COVERAGE WILL NOT APPLY TO LOSSES ASSOCIATED WITH UNLAWFUL USES AND OPERATIONS.



With the legality issue of the whole FAA/commercial operations being the very issue in question and still up in the air, the above statement could be taken as a blanket "get out of jail free card" for your company paying out on any actual claim that occurred during commercial filming operations.
While I do wish to secure this type of insurance, I have no confidence that transportrisk would actually come through with a payout if I ever needed to make a claim.

How are we to rectify this blanket disclaimer on your application with the clearly grey area of commercial drone legality?

 

Bryan, there was a thread recently where a guy crashed his copter and said he got a settlement from his insurance company. I can’t speak to either the authenticity of that claim or the circumstances around it, but I took note as it was the first time I’d heard of a loss of any kind being settled by a UAV insurance company. Caveat emptor, but it seems encouraging.

http://forum.freeflysystems.com/index.php?threads/death-flip-i2c-fail-at-75-feet.4076/#post-44762

 

One thing in particular about that claim was the poster indicated he had a COA....FYI.

 

Bryan
I talked to Terry last year on the phone and it all sounded very good. I clearly said what I was using the copter for and I put it all on the application. However Terry will admit that he is not an underwriter just a broker and can not tell you for sure if a claim will get paid if its for commercial purposes. When I tried to get further clarification via email or in writing I was told a bunch of stuff I did not feel comfortable with and claimed that my application was completed out with all the information regarding my intent which was certainly not the case.

Here's some of what I was told when I asked for further clarification.

Mr. King,

As respects your questions regarding lawful use, we would recommend that you seek written advisement from the FAA as to their opinion if that activity is unlawful. Likewise with local law enforcement agencies. You can include that with your revised application.

Unlawful is never a covered use in any type of policy. If it violates a statute, it will not be covered.

FAR's are defined in aviation as regulations not statutes. Running drugs with an airplane is an unlawful use but may not violate FAR's. Failing to maintain proper fuel levels resulting in a crash or crashing into a house in IMC without an Instrument rating killing all occupants are FAR violations but not necessarily unlawful uses.

If your operations are unlawful, you should not be doing it.

Most in-motion aviation accidents involve FAR Violations and that does not invalidate coverage except in the case of things like a lapsed medical or failure to maintain the air worthiness certificate which are addressed in the policy. Neither of those applies to UAS currently.

While the policy will cover losses that result in FAR violations, you may still be assessed penalties by the FAA and neither those penalties nor defense costs are covered. Nor does coverage constitute authorization to violate FARs.

While most FAR violations do not invalidate coverage, We do not condone or recommend that you violate FAR's. If you are knowingly violating FAR's, then you should reconsider and should not do it.

This is an aircraft policy. The airworthiness certificate provision only applies to aircraft that are required to have one.

This provision is handled in our UAS policy by scheduling the UAS to the policy as such.

Thank you,

Terry

So what I am getting out of this is that FAR's may not be a law but an insurance company can certainly not payout on a claim if they don't want to and use the FAR as an out. IMO, if there becomes a lot of these claims they will start using it therefore there is really no confidence that it will be paid.

 

One way to find out for sure! Crash your copter into someone's noggin while filming for a commercial client, wait until the victim files a multimillion dollar suit because they're experiencing recurring headaches and needs plastic surgery to fix what those Xoars did to their face.

 

I don't even think it has to be a large claim or any lawsuit. I think any incident that involves press or media would be very hard to get a payout.