IANALAIANYL. In the days before the internet, I had a family member who worked for an insurance company. Buried deep in the contract was language that allowed agents of said insurance company to come on the property at any time. Her job basically was to go to people’s houses and walk around taking photos, usually at policy start or in the case of a claim - before and after. If anybody harassed her, they were at risk of having their home insurance dropped. This was Miami in the 1980s fwiw.
I’ve worked for companies that do this my entire professional career. They do work all over the US to this day. It’s just standard property insurance practice. It’d be dumb to insure a property, for both damage and liability, sight unseen. They send many notifications via mail, automated phone and the worker directly calls before heading over there, no one wants to get shot. It surprises me a bit people don’t know about it but, even though I’ve done work in the industry for decades, I’ve never see one of the inspectors at my house. I hadn’t heard of anyone using drones yet but they’ve used bulk flyover images taken from planes with special cameras for at least 15 years.
You don’t own the airspace over your property. The only way someone might get in trouble for flying a drone over your house is if they were looking in windows or harassing people somehow. Most pics from a drone aren’t a lot different from satellite photography.
*“A customer says that someone on the phone said ‘a drone picture’ and the company denies it, saying they use other imaging.”
*
Customer could be mistaken, whoever was on the phone may not know that “drone” covers things from 737 Recon Drone to a $10 aliexpress quadcopter.
I’ll bet $50 it was either a high altitude drone or a satellite image bought from an imaging company, as they’ve been doing for at least 20 years, and not some quadcopter flying just above his yard.
Wait, isn’t this technically “criminal trespassing”?
IANALAIANYL. In the days before the internet, I had a family member who worked for an insurance company. Buried deep in the contract was language that allowed agents of said insurance company to come on the property at any time. Her job basically was to go to people’s houses and walk around taking photos, usually at policy start or in the case of a claim - before and after. If anybody harassed her, they were at risk of having their home insurance dropped. This was Miami in the 1980s fwiw.
I’ve worked for companies that do this my entire professional career. They do work all over the US to this day. It’s just standard property insurance practice. It’d be dumb to insure a property, for both damage and liability, sight unseen. They send many notifications via mail, automated phone and the worker directly calls before heading over there, no one wants to get shot. It surprises me a bit people don’t know about it but, even though I’ve done work in the industry for decades, I’ve never see one of the inspectors at my house. I hadn’t heard of anyone using drones yet but they’ve used bulk flyover images taken from planes with special cameras for at least 15 years.
Sounds like a good way to get shot in some states.
Wow, that’s insanely illegal
Source?
It’s not. Source: I do work for the companies that do it which includes every insurance company you’ve ever heard of.
You don’t own the airspace over your property. The only way someone might get in trouble for flying a drone over your house is if they were looking in windows or harassing people somehow. Most pics from a drone aren’t a lot different from satellite photography.
We actually do own the airspace over our houses. Not as high as planes or space, but a drone probably would from my skimming of this article.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/aviation.uslegal.com/ownership-of-airspace-over-property/%3Famp
The complaint is not for satellite or airplane photography, it’s for a drone
Please read the article before commenting
*“A customer says that someone on the phone said ‘a drone picture’ and the company denies it, saying they use other imaging.” * Customer could be mistaken, whoever was on the phone may not know that “drone” covers things from 737 Recon Drone to a $10 aliexpress quadcopter.
I’ll bet $50 it was either a high altitude drone or a satellite image bought from an imaging company, as they’ve been doing for at least 20 years, and not some quadcopter flying just above his yard.
Please think before commenting.
The same reason flying airplanes isn’t “criminal trespassing”. Satellite and aerial photography happen really high up.
No insurance company used a small toy drone to fly 50’ over his property for pictures.