Get Help With Insurance Buying and Renewals.
Get help buying coverage and managing renewals, with less paperwork for your team. Start with a free consultation.
Insurance Buying Guide for Drone Businesses
Before a first customer flight, a new mission, or an aircraft shipment, separate the operator’s work from the manufacturer’s product and any software or data service. Give the broker aircraft, pilot, mission, customer-property, and data details so the quote can be compared with the actual operation.[1][2]
Which Insurance Should You Consider?
Consider general liability, product liability, technology errors and omissions (E&O), tools, equipment and inland marine, commercial property, and cyber liability. Start with the coverages tied to your day-to-day operations, then use the situations and buying questions below to compare your options.
General liability
You fly commercial missions over customer sites, perform demonstrations, or send staff onto a site.
Ask whether proposed general-liability terms fit the described operation. Aircraft is listed among major CGL exclusions, so do not assume CGL responds to a drone flight.[3][1]
Ask Before Buying
Do the policy terms specifically address aircraft, mission, locations, people, and property involved, and what aircraft or aviation exclusions apply?
Product liability
You make, modify, or integrate an aircraft, controller, payload, or flight-related component.
CGL products and completed-operations terms can address bodily injury or property damage. Ask how proposed terms describe the aircraft and product, and whether separate terms address recall costs.[3]
Ask Before Buying
Which aircraft and components are declared, and how are integration, software updates, completed work, territory, and recall costs treated?
Technology errors and omissions (E&O)
Customers rely on route planning, remote piloting, analytics, or software controlling aircraft behavior.
Professional-liability coverage is a separate category for service or advice errors. For route planning, remote piloting, analytics, or flight software, ask whether proposed professional-services wording addresses errors in that service; this does not establish UAS or technology E&O eligibility.[4]
Ask Before Buying
Which professional services, software, data, and customer dependencies are described, and how would the proposed wording treat a service-error allegation alongside a flight incident?
Tools, equipment and inland marine
Aircraft, payloads, batteries, or ground stations travel to customer missions or test sites.
Inland-marine forms may address property in transit or use equipment floaters. This does not establish UAS hull or payload terms; compare schedule, trip, storage, and operating conditions.[3]
Ask Before Buying
Which aircraft, payloads, batteries, and ground equipment are insured while stored, in transit, assembled, and in use, if any?
Commercial property
You keep aircraft, batteries, or test equipment in a workshop or storage location.
Commercial property terms apply to declared business property, subject to valuation, covered causes, locations, and exclusions. Ask how aircraft and batteries are scheduled and whether any separate aviation wording applies.[3]
Ask Before Buying
Are each location, aircraft, battery, charger, and customer-owned item listed at appropriate values, and what causes of loss and storage conditions apply?
Cyber liability
Your fleet depends on customer data, remote command links, mapping, or cloud mission software.
Cyber policies are customized and may address first-party incident costs or third-party claims. Ask how proposed terms treat mission data, remote command links, cloud systems, and vendor-held information; this does not establish coverage for a flight loss.[5][6]
Ask Before Buying
Which systems and data are within scope, and how do the terms address incident response, vendor-held data, third-party claims, defense, and exclusions?
Decide Which Side of the Flight You Own
For each mission, identify whether your company operates the aircraft, manufactures or modifies it, supplies the payload, or provides route-planning software. Ask the broker to compare flight-injury, product-defect, service-error, and aircraft or payload damage scenarios with proposed terms and exclusions.[3][1][4]
For Part 107 operations, note whether each small aircraft is under 55 pounds, registered, and flown by a qualified remote pilot or under direct supervision. Include mission conditions when asking for quotes.[1]
When a Mission Changes
Before adding flights over people, beyond-visual-line operations, multiple aircraft, or a new payload, identify the operating conditions and any waiver or category relied on. FAA’s waiver material is operation-specific and lists conditions; an authorization does not answer the insurance question.[2]
Send the broker mission profiles, aircraft specifications, pilots, locations, customer property, and waiver conditions. Ask whether those activities are described in the proposed terms and how the form treats aviation exclusions.[2][3]
Schedule the Aircraft and Payloads
Providers to Compare by Coverage
General liability
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Amelia Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
2.0/ 10
Product liability
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Amelia Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
2.0/ 10Technology errors and omissions (E&O)
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Amelia Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
2.0/ 10
Tools, equipment and inland marine
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Commercial property
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Cyber liability
Alliance Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
Not enough ratings
Amelia Risk
Spot Score
Review Score
2.0/ 10Common Questions
If our mission complies with Part 107, does that mean we have insurance?
No. FAA rules and waivers address whether an operation is authorized; the policy wording determines whether an insured loss is covered.[1][2][3]
Read the Full AnswerWhat should change in our insurance review before flights over people?
First establish the operating basis for the mission. FAA’s Part 107 waiver information describes operation-specific conditions, including distinctions for operations over people; a waiver is not insurance evidence.[2][3]
Read the Full AnswerSources and Further Reading
- Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Regulations (Part 107) — Federal Aviation Administration. Part 107 scope for small UAS under 55 pounds, registration, remote-pilot requirements, and operating limits.
FAA operating scope and requirements for small UAS under Part 107; not insurance guidance.
- Part 107 Waivers — Federal Aviation Administration. Commercial operators: waiver categories and operation-specific conditions, including operations over people.
Operation-specific waiver categories and conditions; authorization does not establish policy response.
- Commercial Insurance Guide — California Department of Insurance. Revised June 14, 2024: commercial property, inland marine, boiler and machinery, commercial general liability, products/completed operations, commercial auto, umbrella, and workers compensation.
General California CGL, property, and inland-marine concepts; aircraft exclusions and actual policy wording matter.
- Small Business Insurance — National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Small business insurance FAQ: professional liability for service or advice errors and distinctions from general liability.
NAIC distinguishes general liability from professional liability for service or advice errors; use it to frame a generic professional-services question.
- Cybersecurity — National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Center for Insurance Policy and Research. Cyber risk categories; relationship to commercial property and general liability; customized cyber policies.
NAIC outlines cyber loss categories and explains that cyber policies are customized.
- Cyber Insurance: Cybersecurity for Small Business — National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Small business cyber handout: first-party and third-party coverage, vendor-held data, and duty-to-defend questions, pages 1–2.
NAIC’s small-business handout frames questions about first-party costs, third-party claims, vendor-held data, and defense.
Spot, a product of Tools for Enlightenment, publishes this guide and works in the commercial insurance market. This is general buyer education; policy terms and state-specific obligations determine coverage and requirements.
Updated 2026-09-28. Editorial Policy
Get Help With Insurance Buying and Renewals.
Get help buying coverage and managing renewals, with less paperwork for your team. Start with a free consultation.