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Budgetary Liability Insurance Costs?

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We are looking using a H520 with E90 for some of our civil engineering survey work and I'm trying to get a budget level sense of monthly liability insurance costs? We'll have two operators that have basic UAV experience that will obviously obtain their 107 certs. prior to operations.

From your experience, what might we expect to pay for liability insurance? $100/month, $200/month, etc.

Thanks in advance
 
My commercial liability only policy with $1 mil coverage per aircraft runs a smidge over $600/year for each aircraft. No hull or component coverage. The carrier is Transport Risk. Be advised, the price was a lot higher until they learned of my experience level and full scale licenses. They like seeing your operations documentation.
 
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My commercial liability only policy with $1 mil coverage per aircraft runs a smidge over $600/year for each aircraft. No hull or component coverage. The carrier is Transport Risk. Be advised, the price was a lot higher until they learned of my experience level and full scale licenses. They like seeing your operations documentation.
Thanks Pat.

I've told management that we could be looking at $2000 to $2500/year for $1mil coverage with inexperienced pilots and no track record, so hopefully our initial first year budget is covered and I'm somewhat conservative for our initial business plan expenditures. I'm a part 61, 42 year vet, but the young guys that will be flying for us don't have full scale experience, but they do have a few years with UAV's as hobbyists. Thanks also for the referral of Transport Risk. Our carrier for general company insurance can write UAS coverage, but to your point documentation is significant. They want to see an SOP, maintenance plan and records, estimated flights per year, areas of flight (rural, suburban, urban) etc. etc.

Thanks again, you are always a great resource and your input is much appreciated!
 
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It is clear that BeeRAD56 is looking for information from the USA but if you allow me I will tell you how things are in Spain. If anyone else would like to comment, we can have a global view of how this insurance issue is in different countries. Out of curiosity more than anything else.

Compensation limit of 1 million euros per aircraft and a franchise of 150€ per claim is 325€ per year. Without franchise 405€.
Compensation limit of 300,000 euros per aircraft and a franchise of 150€ per claim is 200€ per year. Without franchise 320€.

I don't know if the translator has worked well, franchise is when you have a claim you pay a share and the rest is paid by insurance. Under no circumstances does it cover own damages. Here for now they're not taking the experience into account. Something that happens with car insurance and young people get paid a lot more.
 
What you call franchise is in the U.S. called “deductible”.

I think the international insurance information is good for the discussion. This forum has an international membership and commercial activities are not limited to just the U.S. Information and knowledge empowers all who can make use of it. Thanks!
 
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For general discussion, what I found interesting was how much more a policy costs if you desired full coverage. When I was researching policies for the Typhoon H (4 companies reviewed) I found it was common for the cost of the policy to double, or more, if you had a need to obtain hull and carried payload coverage. All the carriers required a breakdown of the aircraft components, listing separately by serial number the aircraft, camera type and serial number, and ground station. In discussion with a carrier the additional cost of hull coverage worked to to adding roughly half the cost of each insured component to the annual policy cost. The "added value" of hull coverage is very dependent on the type of system in being insured.

Carrying full liability and hull coverage on a $1,000.00 system is difficult justify as the base rate plus the additional for hull/component coverage raises policy costs to more than the full replacement cost of the system. A deductible (franchise for arruntus) also comes into play with hull coverage. An example here would be $200.00 out of pocket for loss of a CGO-3 and another deductible of $200.00 for the aircraft before the balance was covered by the insurance. So there would an aircraft deductible and camera deductible of $400.00 (or more depending on the deductible requirement) for the operator to pay before an insurance company would cut a check for a new aircraft and camera. As the CGO-3 has a list price of $549 and a BnF H-480 has a list price of ~$499..00, do you pay an extra $800 to $1,200 (per aircraft) for hull coverage or keep it on hand for day to day operational expenses, knowing that you'll be paying another $400 or more if and when you lose one?

The benefit of hull insurance isn't truly realized until the costs of the system become quite high. If flying an Alta with a MoVi and Sony a7rIII w/prime lens the cost of system replacement could easily run $28,000-$30,000. If flying a Red or Arri on the same Alta the replacement cost would jump up to close to $100k or more, which easily justifies the additional cost of hull/carried payload coverage.

What was also interesting is that sUAS insurance, at least for now, costs more than full scale insurance. As an example, a full scale pilot having 500 hours of experience in a Cessna or even a Pitts S2 and equal experience flying sUAS will end up paying a couple hundred $$ more/year for the sUAS coverage.
 
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I went through something similar, I just put the prices of what is called civil responsibility insurance. If it's your fault, it only covers the other side and it doesn't cover you.

When I looked at insurance prices covering the aircraft, apart from the characterization document, they also requested all serial numbers (in my case up to now with the H520 they are aircraft built piece by piece by me). The price was multiplied by 3 or 4. Don't go to those extremes that you mention but much more expensive.

What you're saying about the cost of insurance more expensive than piloted aircraft, I think it's because the drones are still a novelty and they don't have statistics on accidents in order to lower prices. I imagine the prices will go down over time. Another important detail is that, at least here, the insurance companies have to be licensed to be able to make aviation insurance and not so many are licensed, and the drones enter that scope. AESA, the agency that regulates airspace, has rejected many insurances from companies that do not meet this requirement.
 
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What you're saying about the cost of insurance more expensive than piloted aircraft, I think it's because the drones are still a novelty and they don't have statistics on accidents in order to lower prices. I imagine the prices will go down over time. Another important detail is that, at least here, the insurance companies have to be licensed to be able to make aviation insurance and not so many are licensed, and the drones enter that scope. AESA, the agency that regulates airspace, has rejected many insurances from companies that do not meet this requirement.

Pretty much the same applies here. My guess is they have little or nothing available on which to build actuarial tables as there have been few, if any, legal actions demanding "damages" to establish probable settlement amounts. As the number of irresponsible people continue to proliferate the hobby that situation will certainly change. Insurance company licensing is also a requirement here, and such licensing has to be registered in each state a company wishes to sell insurance. The number of companies licensed to provide aviation policies is very limited. Someone researching insurance needs to assure a company is licensed to provide coverage in the area they will be flying in before applying for a policy. You may have a policy that provides coverage in your home state but going out of state or country to operate can place you in a location where your policy does not provide coverage.
 

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