I am looking to get a quote for drone insurance and so went to Coverdrone but I wondered if I am missing a trick here.
I want to use my drone commercially so I ticked the box for commercial use with £1m liability (which isn’t very high for commercial work IMO) and it is quoting £108.
Is that high? Is there an alternative I should consider? Is £1m enough for general commercial work in towns and country?
Any help would be appreciated.
Dependants on the client, I have been on sites where £5m is a minimum.
It is often better to insure by the day and charge the customer.
Yes, I looked at paying for insurance by the day but the type of work I plan to do I may not have a customer to charge at the time I do the flight as it would often be speculative.
The same quote but daily is £8… that means that if I do more than 12 or so days of commercial work a year then I am better off with the annual policy.
BTW… £5m cover was £238!
Are there better alternatives?
Legally you’re only required to have 750,000 Special Drawing Rights of insurance for commercial work, which is approximately equal to £750,000.
Clients may expect more, but also depends on the type of drone you’re using. Can’t realistically see a Mini series drone for example causing three-quarters-of-a-million pounds worth of damage including if it hit someone falling from 120m.
As for the cost, consider how frequently you’re going to be doing commercial work. If your total expected days of commercial working work out costing less if you took a day rate consider that instead for example.
PS: Remember, expenses like insurance should be included in the fee you charge a client.
£108 is a lot less than I am paying. I need to shop around next time it comes up for renewal.
Thanks. That is a big help.
As for a mini causing that much damage… it isn’t always about what direct physical damage the drone can do but we also need to consider any knock on liability. For example… a bit unlikely I know but it is possible that a drone falls from the sky and causes a car accident in which a person is seriously injured. Like I say, unlikely but you have insurance for the unlikely but not impossible events. That injured person might need life-time medical treatment which it might be deemed our liability. It could be very expensive!
And a bus load of nuns swerves to avoid it, exploding a ball of flames killing all on board, before crashing into the dogs home.
This would usually end up coming down to mixed liability which means it’d dip into the driver’s insurance too.
Assuming the driver has insurance.
I must say that I find this kind of approach to risk worrying. The type of risk I am describing does happen… may be only very rarely, but that is why we have insurance and if it happened to you it could ruin you for the rest of your life if you don’t have valid insurance. I am not being a nanny here.
You’d declare bankruptcy, be off credit blacklist reports in 6 years and rebuild your credit score.
probably even easier if you’re declaring a limited business bankrupt!
Are you planning on flying over peoples property, knock on their door, show them a picture on your phone and try to sell it them?
Please let us know how you get on if so.
I see what you’re referencing there. 
In seriousness though my guess is he means stock photography.
If so don’t bother. You’ll make pennies at best from it and you’ll be waiting years to recoup the cost of the insurance for the flights most likely.
You’d be better off insuring yourself to the teeth, crashing drones into walls and floors and click baiting the ad sponsored YouTube videos.
Stock tog is crap, commissioned work is the only way to go.
I wonder how many of us understand this
Fly over some CRT canals and knock on their door in Ellesmere Port with the photos.
That’ll be fun.
In all seriousness I think there’s several reports of people doing this in the last few years now drones are affordable. Whilst some people may bite many will naturally go all Karen esque and harp on about privacy. And so the circle is complete.
Indeed. In the past 12 months I’ve made $5.16 in stock. Which I can’t cash out as isn’t the minimum payout bracket.
I need to get into using people more but for some reason the OH doesn’t think pics of her in her lab coat with a dummy stethoscope will sell. 
It’s only a matter of time before snaxmuppet goes fully rogue and becomes an auditor. 
Rather depends upon what is on the other end 