Drone insurance question

dilby00

Hi all -

This might seem quite a technical question, but I'm more asking from a legal point of view and would be curious to get others' opinions on this.

I am a web designer by trade and also own a drone, which I just fly for fun. I've had a few client ask me recently about filming for them, but I'm aware of commercial limitations and have looked into the law and found I need to be become 'commercially qualified' in order to be able to fly a drone for commercial gain. However much of the law surrounding this seems dodgy at best, and I was curious what other people 's feelings towards it was.

In short, if you fly a drone for fun, you have very little restrictions - most of it is common sense. You can walk into PC world and hand your money over and as long as stay away from people and buildings (there are specific distances but i wont get too technical) you will be fine. You don't even legally need insurance but if you want it then it's only £19 per year to give you for £5million public liability.

However, if you want to fly for commercial gain, that all changes. The CAA (governing body) define this as anything that benefits a business or organisation or involves the exchange of money or goods. In reality this involves any youtuber, any instagrammer who is furthering their career or being paid to post things, and any business who use them.

But as soon as you want do this, there's a whole new set of laws to follow. Firstly you need to pass a test, which is around £1200 and provided my third parties. You then need to pay an annual £112 for your license itself. Then each time you fly you must submit a whole range of documents outlining your route, permissions for land owners you'll be flying over and I believe there's a fee for this too. You also legally need commercial insurance which is around £500-600 per year for £1 million liability.

But of course, if you're doing it for fun, you need none of that.

So my question is, how fair is it from a legal point of view for insurance to be more for people who prove they know what they are doing? My car insurance company will not provide me cheaper insurance if I do not have a license. This does not make sense, and clearly seems to be a money making scheme.

And how fair is it that the same people who have proved their abilities have more flight restrictions than those who don't?

I don't only ask from a legal point of view, but safety. We often see these news stories about drones and planes and how dangerous they are, but here lies a massive issue: the people who want to be safe are penalised. The law is rewarding people to disobey it. To justify the cost, a commercial pilot needs to charge a small fortune for a job to be done, and most businesses I fear - certainly as I consider doing it as a job and consider my own clients - will just use someone they know who got one for christmas.

Is there not something we can do about this?

For the record, I'm not against us having to pass a test (Although the price does seem excessive). I'm not even against submitting documentation regarding routes etc. What I have a problem with is the huge equality gap between that stance, and then dropping all those requirements for someone who may not even know what they are doing.

Thanks - rant over (for now!)

spadoosh

Your dealing with amateur v proffesional.

Lets look at your driving licence analogy. Should a taxi driver have lower insurance than me? They are a proffesional driver. Likewise with wagons, theyre professional not me. They will pay more for that privilege solely down to the fact that they are more likely to be on the road than i am.

Someone who owns a drone business needs to be flying them regularly in order to make it a business. Doing so increases the risk and should require more qualifications. The people who get them at christmas might fly them a few times a year.

The licence also grants you additional privilege over the hobbyists with regards to flight height and distances from crowds etc. So theres benefits to the licence (not least it allows you to make money).

Ultimately it comes down to a relatively new industry (rc planes have been around for decades but not quite the same in popularity) with relatively little in place for rules and regulations. Rules around drone use im fairly confident will change sooner or later.

Sorry going back to your clients using friends who got one for christmas, they would be in contravention of the laws if it was deemed business use. Some will take the risk others will not. Just like most other businesses and compliance.

Johnmcl7

I don't think your analogy is accurate with car insurance - if you want to insure your car for commercial use such as hire and reward you'll find the insurance increases hugely.

Also the requirements are most certainly not 'dropped' for hobbyists either, the drone rules for relatively strict for hobbyists - no flying over people, no flying within 50m of houses, no flying within 150m of built up areas or crowds, stay below 120m and fly within visual line of sight. I'm an amateur drone hobbyist and spend some time around drone forums and I find most people flying drones just ignore these rules completely. Anyone questioning the legality of a flight video or drone rules will generally open themselves to a tirade of abuse.

I can see the rules staying the same for the commercial fliers but more enforcement of these rules for hobbyists particularly as drones get cheaper and more widespread. I wouldn't be surprised to see NFZ's to be spread much wider and cover entire towns and similar to restrict amateur drone owners.

paddyrg

If you're a hobbyist and cause an accident by flying too high or fast or anything, your domestic insurance will simply not cover you as well.

Strider590

There's been a big outlash at drone usage, they're not as big a problem as people are making out, there are simply powerful people out there trying to demonise them for whatever reasons. It's like cyclists, they're an unprotected minority, the media/press really don't like them and so they make them look like the spawn of satan for ratings and to sell papers.

Frozen_up_north

If you join the British Model Flying Association (https://bmfa.org) membership includes insurance. While primarily for fixed wing and helicopter flyers, I think the included insurance covers amateur drone use too.

Membership is £25 for the rest of the year and £33 Jan to Jan.

missile

Perhaps easier for you to provide drone filming as a free service to your clients? Look on it as a marketing expense.

Uxb

EASA is proposing regulations to "deal" with drones.
Unfortunately it likely to also catch in its net those who fly model aircraft.

EASA will grant itself those powers to regulate flying things of this size (currently it does not have those powers) because the EU parliament will give it the laws it requires. The UK government will then have no power to overturn them so moaning about them and complaining to your MP will have no effect.
(now you know why do many voted to leave!)

So as @DavidP says - you are about to see laws to make it more difficult not easier. This is the history and modus operandi of EASA. Private recreational hobby flying like I do myself being forced into new regulations more applicable to professional passenger carrying pilots/licence ratings.

Look up the Gatwick incident a month ago. Planes diverted, runways closed - all due to a drone in the vicinity. The problem is that the ATC does not know what the drone will do next....is it going to veer back away the operator having realized the mistake or do they not care/its out of control and have it veer across the Gatwick runway......

Johnmcl7

Uxb wrote: »

Look up the Gatwick incident a month ago. Planes diverted, runways closed - all due to a drone in the vicinity. The problem is that the ATC does not know what the drone will do next....is it going to veer back away the operator having realized the mistake or do they not care/its out of control and have it veer across the Gatwick runway......

There's a few minor issues with the Gatwick incident and any of these so called 'drone' near misses at the airports. Firstly, a standard drone can't fly into an airport so there's no issue with an operator 'realising' they've made a mistake as a standard drone won't let them fly there in the first place. Secondly, to be able to fly to that sort of height needs a powerful drone with a long range and for the likes of a DJI drone or similar it would need the software hacked to allow it to bypass the NFZ's and other restrictions. This isn't something you'd do accidentally, it would take quite a bit of effort to be able to carry it out in the first place.

Of course with such a disruptive drone, they surely caught the drone and have now arrested the operator? Ah no, despite the numerous 'drone' sightings and near misses, no-one even saw this disruptive drone even with the large number of spotting options and cameras these days. In fact, there's no evidence of even one of these fleet of drones - I say fleet because the pilots have identified all manner of different models. If the drones were genuinely such a threat and were closing runways, they would have been able to track it themselves or even get their own drone or helicopter up to track the drone.

So either the airports are doing absolutely nothing despite the vast array of options available to them or the near misses didn't happen and the airline pilots are using the following identification chart:



I can certainly see drones as a threat but I don't believe for a moment there is a mysterious fleet of drones consistently managing incredible feats of coordination without anyone ever spotting them. The recent Tel Aviv incident is much more telling - someone with a hacked Mavic flew it near the airport (nowhere near as the British near misses though) and was arrested plus his drone confiscated:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/dji-drone-enthusiast-arrested-israel-filming-planes-landing-tel-aviv-airport-1630650

dilby00

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

If you join the British Model Flying Association (https://bmfa.org) membership includes insurance. While primarily for fixed wing and helicopter flyers, I think the included insurance covers amateur drone use too.

Membership is £25 for the rest of the year and £33 Jan to Jan.

Yup, thanks, but this is for hobby flying only. (my post makes the point regarding commercial vs hobby insurance)

dilby00

DavidP24 wrote: »

Be careful what you wish for, because they will not make it easier for you to do things professionally but harder for people who have a hobby.

Up to now drones have been quite expensive so restricted to middle classes and drug dealers making deliveries into prisons!

The deterrent to flying dangerously in built up areas has been to crash and lose your drone, costing perhaps £2k.

So people flew in open spaces, upgraded their beasts took them higher only to put planes at risk, now the government is working on some kind of licensing, going to be very difficult to police.

So to your REAL problem, how to make money from this in your web design footage?

The answer is simple, you do not offer to fly a drone professionally.

Instead you offer your clients the chance to buy library footage of drone shots and if they want something that does not exist you say you will subcontract it or ask for it on drone forums.

Even if you happen to go create the footage yourself at the weekend as part of your hobby as long as you give it away to your company and it is they that sell photography and video there is no issue.

This is what happens when the law is stupid, people find ways around it.

A friend of mine has an amazing drone, I can't control it even over a field so I am in awe of those who can. She has terabytes of drone footage, that is the most expensive aspect of this the editing; and that is what you should be charging for.

Thanks so much for the reply. Yup, I'm totally open to the option of not doing it at all as I'm not even sold on the idea of starting it. I just looked into it and was ultra confused at what seemed an unfair system.

I could find a loophole like you mentioned that would help avoid any fines, but I guess my concern would be the insurance side of things; I don't fancy my chances against their lawyers if something happened using excused like 'i did it for free' etc.