Drone insurance for agriculture

Fifty hectares are covered in about thirty minutes, far from any housing. Few people to injure, then. But it is precisely when nobody is around that you stop watching your aircraft, and that is where the regulations make themselves felt.

The limit of visual line of sight

It is not a distance in metres. It is the point where you stop seeing your aircraft clearly enough to avoid an obstacle and monitor its attitude. Over a flat plot in clear weather it moves further away; late in the day or behind a hedge it comes closer.

As long as you stay within it, your job belongs to the open category, subcategory A3. Beyond it, the job moves into the specific category, with everything that implies: declaration or authorisation, and the European insurance regime with no weight threshold.

Why that changes your premium

It is not an administrative nuance. The two regimes are not priced alike. An operator covered for the open category who in fact flies beyond visual line of sight is not covered for what they do.

The answer depends on your plot, your aircraft and your flying habits. A pilot who always flies in the same direction, into the late-afternoon sun, does not have the same limit as another.

What we check on an agricultural job

The declared value of the multispectral sensor, often higher than that of the aircraft.

Cover in the event of a forced landing on soft ground, which is the most frequent way things break in this sector.

The multispectral sensor holds the value

The multispectral sensor holds the value. Depending on the model it represents between half and twice the price of the airframe, and it is declared separately at its purchase value excluding VAT. Add the calibration panel, often forgotten, and the batteries, whose full set comes to a significant sum in a sector where flights are long.

Mention the processing software too if it was bought with the sensor: some licences are tied to the hardware and do not survive its destruction.

The client, cooperative or farmer

Jobs come from a farmer, a cooperative or an agronomy consultancy. Cooperatives and advisory bodies ask for the certificate; individual farmers do so far more rarely. That absence of a request changes nothing about the obligation: it rests on you, not on your client.

One contractual point deserves attention: if your survey feeds a decision about applying inputs that turns out badly, the dispute concerns the quality of the service, not physical damage. That is answered by professional indemnity, which is not the same thing as aviation third-party liability.

Visual line of sight decides your price

The question of visual line of sight dominates the calculation. As long as the job stays within the remote pilot’s field of view, the regime is that of the open category, and the premium follows. Moving into the specific category changes the policy in kind.

The value of the sensor is the second factor, since it sets the basis for hull cover. Finally, the area treated each year gives a sense of the real exposure, and insurers ask for it.

Read more: what moves you into the specific category, and the comparison of the six covers.