Leading Insurance Providers Swarm to Utilize Drones

Many large insurance carriers have begun using drones to aid in both their underwriting as well as their claims assessment and processing. Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began granting Section 333 exemptions last year, allowing for the commercial use of drones, many insurance providers have been rapidly exploring how to most effectively use drones in their operations. Six major insurance carriers -- AIG, State Farm, Erie Insurance, USAA, Allstate, and most recently Liberty Mutual -- have gained exemption status to date. With their combined total revenue of roughly $240 billion, many others will undoubtedly notice and follow suit. Certainly, a plethora of service and solution providers have emerged to capture their share of drones in the insurance industry.

Insurance underwriting and claims verification have traditionally been difficult and time-consuming to do. Particularly after natural disasters like earthquakes and storms, insurance companies are often backlogged in weeks if not months of paperwork. Properties requiring assessment or inspection often also prove dangerous or difficult to navigate, at least by man alone.

As such, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have proved to be a much better option. Drones can rapidly gather high-resolution and thermal-infrared data in many different environments, all the while bolstering safety, security and lowering costs. While none of these insurance companies intend for drones to replace human workers, drones are becoming indispensable in making insurance decisions -- both before and during the recovery process.

However, as useful as drones are, many insurance companies are finding them difficult to develop and utilize. The wide variety of models and sensors has led to much confusion and delay. Similarly, the lack of pilot expertise has resulted in many crashed drones and thousands of dollars in oftentimes self-imposed damage. Even when these companies turn to so-called “experts”, they are finding that many operators are nonexempt, uncertified, and uninsured.

Indeed, insurance companies are realizing more and more that they need reliable and widely deployable expertise. DroneView Technologies arose to fit that very need: offering not only leading aerial surveillance and training solutions, but also the necessary software processing and analytic capabilities to truly benefit from this aerial data.