The insurance industry increasingly utilizes drones for pre- and post-loss operations, aiming to enhance risk management and reduce operational costs. Insurance companies are eyeing applications such as personnel safety compliance, construction site management, and post-disaster assessment. For example, drone mapping by Dronotec saved an insurance company a staggering $ 10,81,00,282 after a major fire devastated a French vacation destination. As drones are versatile, portable solutions, they are becoming increasingly popular tools that allow insurance specialists and inspectors to asses damage quickly and safely.
Why Do I Need Drones for Insurance?
There are many benefits to utilizing UAVs for inspection—let’s take a look at 5 key advantages that are driving drone adoption in this sector:
- Safety & Risk Management: Drones eliminate the need for human inspectors to navigate high-risk areas, ensuring their safety and reducing costs for insurance companies.
- Efficiency: Beyond safety benefits, drones significantly improve the efficiency of assessments. They can capture hundreds of detailed photos within a short span of twenty minutes, making inspections more affordable and swift.
- Real-Time Data: Drones provide invaluable real-time data, empowering insurance teams with instant insights. This timely information is crucial for streamlined claim settlements and ongoing decision-making processes.
- Visual Imagery: Maneuverability and ease of use make drones adept at capturing high-quality, advanced images. This visual data, often challenging for human inspectors to obtain, contributes to more thorough claims and settlements, enhancing the overall adjustment process.
- Claims Management: Drones play a pivotal role in expediting claims decisions for both policyholders and insurers. Their ability to deliver accurate, transparent assessments improves the overall experience for insurance companies and customers alike.
Insurance Enterprise Solutions
- Roof Inspections
Traditional roof inspections, managed by human teams, have long been associated with high costs, complexity, and time-consuming processes. Drones are great at reaching places that were hard to get to before. Whether it’s tight corners, steep slopes, or places that are not safe for people, drones can handle it. They take clear and detailed pictures, making assessments quick and accurate. - Storm Restoration
Storms wreak havoc on properties, presenting challenges that drones adeptly address to enhance storm restoration efforts. Insurance companies can leverage drones to survey affected areas, accelerating the claims process. UAvs can capture ultra-high-resolution aerial imagery, offering rapid access to crucial post-event property information for first responders, insurance carriers, and utility customers. Imagery captured by drones can be very specific, detailing roof damage, fallen trees, flooding, and other emergency conditions, demonstrating the invaluable role drones play in navigating and managing post-catastrophe scenarios.
During Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael in the southeastern U.S., State Farm, in collaboration with Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP), successfully obtained a federal waiver for drone flights during storm damage inspections. The year-long effort resulted in one of the most substantial waivers granted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), allowing State Farm to deploy drones nationwide for property damage assessment. This collaboration shows how much drones are changing how insurance companies work. As the use of drones keeps growing, the insurance industry is taking big steps to use these new tools to serve people better and handle risks more effectively.
Additionally, we are seeing more and more positive regulations that favor the wide-spread use of drones for commercial purposes, which will allow more organizations to implement drones in their operations. To help organizations that are ready to take flight with a specialized UAV program, we developed a guide with the most critical steps to consider for successful implementation.
You can check out our eBook, “Eight Tips for UAV Program Implementation Success” here for the comprehensive guide.