Time To Claim
So you’ve done your due diligence, pre-site, on-site, RAMS, checks, maintenance, servicing, battery cycling, and all the rest and then…you drone hits something, loses a prop at 50m, flys away or gets stolen.
Now you’re into insurance claim territory so what do you do? What are the procedures, timescales and potential problems?
Here at ADP, we’re proud to have Moonrock as a partner supporting our members. Thing with insurance is though, you never actually know how good they are until you need to claim. Here are just a couple of recent experiences that I, and a member of ADP, have had:
Last month I had a ‘Beyond Economical Repair’ incident. The short story is that whilst idling on the ground following a perfect flight, to deep cycle the battery, my Inspire at around 15{79e63170e1a405cc5a84c498cd6b6cafb66340e03021c689e0c95106e514e52b} decided it didn’t want to do that and without warning, took off and, promptly hit a building within 4m. So I shall explain what happened with Moonrock in terms of timeline.
- Wednesday – Incident around 12 noon.
- – Called Moonrock around 12:30 after acertaining level of damage
- – Received claim form from Alan at Moonrock around 13:00
- – Sent in completed claim form, copy of PfCO, RAMS, flight log and photos of damage and estimated hire cost for any jobs needing covering
- Friday – Update from Alan requesting copies of original invoices for equipment
- Following Wednesday – Received offer from Moonrock where insurers had written off drone. Agreed offer.
- Payment received early the following week.
Now obviously this is my personal experience, others may have different and had I had some urgent jobs lined up, I’m certain Moonrock would have looked after the costs involved there too. I’d like to thank both Alan and Simon at Moonrock for their assistance in this matter.
A rather more disturbing cause of claim
One ADP member was recently victim to a robbery with weapons in central London where they had approximately £60,000 of drones etc taken whilst members of the public watched. They immediately contacted Moonrock and where invited to send pictures over of the incident as well as the Police info. Following receiving the claim form, they responded the same day confirming payout and also assisting with hired in equipment for business continuity. Whilst the member had other drones in their fleet to keep delivering their service to clients, Moonrock assisted with additional hired in equipment to ensure they were fully operational.
Now the moral of this post isn’t just to say that Moonrock are wonderful. I know of people with very positive stories from other insurers. The idea behind writing this is the make sure readers know the value of good insurance. After all, it’s only when you have a claim that you really find out if your insurer is any good.
So, whatever you’re doing and wherever you’re flying, make sure you have insurance, are where you’re supposed to be and not doing anything you shouldn’t be. That way, you’re sure to get a good result in the event of a claim.
