American International Group will become one of the first insurance companies to use drones to manage risk and assess claims, following approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
AIG announced Wednesday that the FAA had agreed to allow the insurer to operate unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct inspections, both for risk assessment and claims management.
“The exemption also permits AIG to implement a robust research and development program to explore new and innovative ways to employ UAVs in support of the needs of customers,” AIG said in a statement.
The drones will be able to survey property and disaster areas, and take high-resolution images, accelerating the underwriting and claims processes.
The use of drones in property/casualty insurance has been widely speculated, and other insurers—including USAA—have filed requests with the FAA to begin using them. Analysts often cite the benefits associated with claims management in their pursuit of commercial drone use.
“One of the areas we are looking to use these in is before and after natural disasters," said Kathleen Swain, USAA property and casualty group underwriter and FAA-rated commercial pilot. "It's sometimes much quicker to get the machine out to these disaster zones than a human body. This could help speed up the process and help put them back to where they were before the claims event.”
Concerns for privacy, however, have also emerged.
“Digital eyes will see anything in their view and send back that information to the party collecting the visual data,” writes Steve Doyle of Willis Aerospace. “This raises privacy concerns issues. Surveillance of employees or non-employees, whether intentional or not, could have serious liability repercussions that will need to be addressed.”
AIG already has a research and development program in New Zealand, it said, and has begun running test flights with the drones.
