Drones and the insurance industry
Are you worried about drones, those little flying mechanical birds that can catch you coming out of your outdoor shower? Pretty soon baring all to the world may be the least of your worries when it comes to drones
On April 1, April fool’s Day, I wrote a column about the use of drone technology in the marketing of real estate. Well it didn’t take long, exactly eight days, before I read yet another piece about the pending use of drones. This time it was in the Wall Street Journal and had to do with the insurance industry.
As of the beginning of April we now have three national insurance companies whose request to federal regulators has been approved to use unmanned aircraft.
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, United States Automobile Association (USAA) and American International Group (AIG) plan on using drones to inspect everything from damaged roofs to collapsed buildings in flooded areas and who knows what else. They say their main concern is to have access to large industrial facilities or catastrophe sites where victims have been evacuated.
According to the Wall Street Journal, insurers said drones will improve their ability to swiftly respond to claims from hurricanes, tornadoes and floods by providing aerial images of areas claims adjusters can’t get to. They also see drones as a way to reduce injuries from risky roof inspections. AIG is already using this technology in New Zealand and it is planning on deploying drones in the United States this year.
Since we live in an area where two out of the three natural disasters the insurance companies are focusing on can happen, I guess we should be happy that the insurance companies can verify and analyze damage quickly, right? Well maybe not, if insurers can fly over your house to check its condition after a hurricane or a flood, they also can fly over it to check its condition before they write you insurance. And even if you’re not hiding anything, will they start picking away at minor issues a real live insurance inspector either may have overlooked or not noticed, just saying?
However, the FAA has placed restrictions on insurers relative to flying over private property and risking invasion of privacy laws. Insurers need to obtain permission from the owner prior to launching their drones in addition to limiting drone activity near airports and in urban areas. But my question is, at some point in the future, will the insurance companies require homeowner’s permission to use an inspection drone at the time application is made for a new policy?
Never-the-less, it is the wave of the future and just another by-product of technology that is changing our lives daily. As we previously talked about, the real estate industry is on the verge of diving into the drone technology. Private property owners, like farmers inspecting their crops with drones and contractors compiling footage of their job sites, are already taking advantage of unmanned drones.
FAA restrictions not withstanding you can bet your right of privacy will be drastically changed in the years ahead. Google Maps was bad enough, now we have to contend with flying insurance inspectors interrupting our shower. I guess robots delivering our insurance refund are not far behind.
