While Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) approved drones could be useful tools for insurance providers,
privacy concerns and a web of laws will make their use complicated, according
to a National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) white paper.
“You have the legal
right to have your neighbor removed from standing in your front yard,” Tom Karol, NAMIC general counsel-federal, said. “You can have his dog removed and keep
his tree limbs from growing over your yard. But under the FAA’s definition of
‘navigable airspace,’ you can’t stop a drone from flying over your property,
even at low altitude, and it may be a federal crime to try.”
Titled “Unmanned
Aircraft: Defining Private Airspace,” the white paper focuses on the privacy
concerns and the actions local and state governments have taken to counter
them. Drone users can take images from wherever their drones are allowed to
fly, and without private airspace, this covers most properties. The issues
inherently raised by this are generating a patchwork of standards and
regulations.
“While
property/casualty insurance companies see the benefits in using unmanned
aircraft systems to serve policyholders, as well as to provide coverage for
policyholders that use [unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)], the industry is
stymied by a smorgasbord of differing and often competing standards of
privacy,” Karol said. “Questions surrounding private airspace must be resolved
in order to define how insurers will use and insure UAS, as well as to
determine what regulations are needed to facilitate both. If the FAA won’t take
action, then it’s up to Congress.”
