Monthly (daily) Drone Liability Insurance- Something to watch out for (Skywatch et al)

[vindibona1]

Last month I was doing a commercial project where liability insurance was imperative. After checking the few companies that offered daily, weekly or monthly drone liability insurance I selected Skywatch.AI as they offered $1million coverage for the month for $62. I thought it was a fair price as annual insurance runs between $600-$800/year depending on the company and coverage.

It was pretty easy to buy the insurance, but there is one small hidden feature that wasn't obvious and I was totally unaware of: AUTO RENEWAL. I didn't check any boxes to authorize auto-renewal or ongoing coverage. I bought monthly coverage because I needed it for the month and nothing more. So when I received an email that they had dinged my credit card another $62 I was quite surprised and upset as I did not authorize them to do so. Did I have to "uncheck" a box somewhere to prevent this????

I immediately wrote to their support and the marketing manager to demand an immediate refund and did get a prompt response from the marketing manager who had previously reached out to see if I was happy with the way I could purchase their insurance. So it seems that he at least is responsive. Let's see if the support team is as responsive when business reopens Monday morning.

Bottom line: if you're buying insurance (or anything else for that matter) for a given time period, make sure there aren't any hidden or un-obvious auto-renewal features buried on their order pages. Once before I got hit with one of those schemes from an online music tutorial website... and they wouldn't refund my money. Caveat Emptor.

 

[spamgnome]

I ran into this too recently, but luckily I was going to probably renew anyway when the renewal email came in. I just now went back to the initial confirmation email, and it states,
"Your drone insurance policy is now in effect, so no need to worry - you can focus on having a safe flight. This policy will automatically renew on a monthly basis, you can choose not to renew at any time."

Right after that there's a link that tells you how to do it. Go to Policy Management, and there you'll find a toggle to turn auto-renew on or off.

Hope that helps

 

[Sixdollars]

You might look in to the Liability insurance that AMA includes in their membership. I guess you should look in to whether it's usable with Commercial uses.

 

[vindibona1]

As noted, I had written the Skywatch.AI marketing manager and received a reply this morning that the auto-renewal had been canceled and payment refunded. I felt that he was very responsive. I would imagine it would be difficult to see how smoothly a claim would be with them so I guess we just have to trust that all would be ok in the event of a crash with damage to property or humans.

 

[GFields]

Greetings! thanks for sharing!

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

It's great you can get this sort of cover for whatever projects you feel it's needed.
That is cheap for what you can get in the event something goes astray.

$1 million isn't a lot though in todays terms.
Would be good to see someone offer say $5 mil or $10 mil for even a single project over 1 day, or two days etc.

 

[vindibona1]

It's great you can get this sort of cover for whatever projects you feel it's needed.
That is cheap for what you can get in the event something goes astray.

$1 million isn't a lot though in todays terms.
Would be good to see someone offer say $5 mil or $10 mil for even a single project over 1 day, or two days etc.

You can get more insurance if you're willing to pay for it. I think what you choose is related to risk assessment. If you're flying around Elon Musk's SpaceX project you may want to get more insurance as any accident could cost millions. If you're flying an Inspire and near humans you know an Inspire can do a lot more damage than a Mini or a Mavic 2. Every situation is different which is why short term insurance isn't a bad thing. You can change the amount of coverage as you go. I'm not sure if a company like Skywatch would pro-rate coverage for part of a month to be able to increase coverage for the second part in the event that your risk assessment changes.

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

Last month I was doing a commercial project where liability insurance was imperative. After checking the few companies that offered daily, weekly or monthly drone liability insurance I selected Skywatch.AI as they offered $1million coverage for the month for $62. I thought it was a fair price as annual insurance runs between $600-$800/year depending on the company and coverage.

It was pretty easy to buy the insurance, but there is one small hidden feature that wasn't obvious and I was totally unaware of: AUTO RENEWAL. I didn't check any boxes to authorize auto-renewal or ongoing coverage. I bought monthly coverage because I needed it for the month and nothing more. So when I received an email that they had dinged my credit card another $62 I was quite surprised and upset as I did not authorize them to do so. Did I have to "uncheck" a box somewhere to prevent this????

I immediately wrote to their support and the marketing manager to demand an immediate refund and did get a prompt response from the marketing manager who had previously reached out to see if I was happy with the way I could purchase their insurance. So it seems that he at least is responsive. Let's see if the support team is as responsive when business reopens Monday morning.

Bottom line: if you're buying insurance (or anything else for that matter) for a given time period, make sure there aren't any hidden or un-obvious auto-renewal features buried on their order pages. Once before I got hit with one of those schemes from an online music tutorial website... and they wouldn't refund my money. Caveat Emptor.

Check out AirModo drone insurance. We do not have autorenewal on any of our policies.

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

Annual premiums with AirModo start at $575. Hourly premiums start at $9. We don't add fees when you go to purchase your policy either. What you see is what you pay.

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

It's great you can get this sort of cover for whatever projects you feel it's needed.
That is cheap for what you can get in the event something goes astray.

$1 million isn't a lot though in todays terms.
Would be good to see someone offer say $5 mil or $10 mil for even a single project over 1 day, or two days etc.

AirModo offers up to $25 million for commercial operators. I agree that in addition to many jobsites now requiring $10 million plus, the legal world has changed and lawsuits are getting expensive quickly these days. The premium differential for an additional few million dollars in coverage is worth the peace of mind.

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

AirModo drone insurance allows you to increase the limit of coverage while taking into account the premium you've already paid when using the annual option.

 

[MS Coast]

My security software is blocking airmodo.com.

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

Thats odd. Let me know what browser you are using, and I can look into it. We haven't had any problems with our website or app.

 

[MS Coast]

Thats odd. Let me know what browser you are using, and I can look into it. We haven't had any problems with our website or app.

It happened with both Chrome and Firefox. Windows 10. AT&T network.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

AirModo offers up to $25 million for commercial operators. I agree that in addition to many jobsites now requiring $10 million plus, the legal world has changed and lawsuits are getting expensive quickly these days. The premium differential for an additional few million dollars in coverage is worth the peace of mind.

Welcome to the forum, I see you probably joined up today, and posted info to various threads.
Good on you for supporting the forum as an approved vendor.

So I would think USAIG just do cover for the USA ?
Or is it available Worldwide ?

 

[AirModo - Drone Insurance]

Thanks, we are fully onboard with supporting others in our industry. You have a great question. AirModo hourly policies cover your selected 1-mile radius point within the USA. For our annual policies, we can only write coverage with US policyholder addresses since that is where we are licensed to do business. Our annual coverage option covers worldwide territory automatically without additional premium. However, there may be certain countries that require local insurance be purchased or specific certificates of insurance issued in-country. That may be problematic is some areas but we leave that to the drone operator to ascertain.