Commercial Drone Insurance - Available and Affordable

By Grant Goldsmith
October 23, 2015

Drones are here to stay. There are more and more insurance companies offering commercial drone insurance to meet the growing business demands. This is good news for businesses using a drone for business. The drone coverage is broad and the costs are reasonable. If you are using a drone in your business or if you want to use a drone in your business you can properly insure this risk.

Start with an insurance cost estimate for your commercial drone. The website www.insuremydrones.com will give you a quick insurance cost estimate using the prevailing rates offered right now. Decide whether you only want liability coverage as a drone operator or if you want both liability insurance and physical damage insurance (hull insurance) for the drone itself. The typical tipping point for Physical Damage coverage is a drone worth $5,000 or more.

You can also insure the camera system or payload that you may be flying. This payload may be integrated with the drone or it may be separately purchased and installed. Some camera system costs significantly more than the drones so please don't forget about insuring your important payloads.

Businesses and Venues that hire drones or host drones can also get coverage. A Non Owned Drone Aviation Policy would provide liability coverage to a business, venue or premises where drones are in use but where the owner of premises is not the owner of the drone. This is important coverage for a drone show venue or possibly a golf course or hotel where drones will be routinely operated but where the premises owner is subcontracting the operations to a drone operator third party.

Business selling or distributing drone can also purchase coverage. This coverage would be for distributor liability or for product liability if the business actually built drones or even modified drones. Many of today's drone manufacturers reside outside the USA in China and elsewhere. It may be difficult for a party injured by a drone to sue a foreign entity. It is often easier to sue the USA based distributor or retailer instead. If you are a distributor or retailer you should assume you have the potential to be named in a claim or suit and you would want insurance coverage to handle your legal defense costs at a minimum.

Drones are here to stay. The insurance industry is leaning forward on this risk and the pricing of drone insurance will go down over time. Today it is possible to buy a good commercial drone policy from several USA based insurers. The coverage is available and affordable so don't fly without it.