Drone insurance for film and television

Twenty-five metres up, and the highest liability limit we place. The apparent contradiction clears as soon as you look at who stands around the perimeter.

Flying low above people

A shoot is flown right by the subject, inside a perimeter you control, with uninvolved people just behind the barrier. That is exactly the set-up described by standard scenario STS-01: flight within visual line of sight above a controlled ground area, in a populated environment.

The kinetic energy of a 25-metre fall is enough to injure someone seriously. Proximity is the risk factor, not height.

What the standard scenario requires

STS-01 assumes a class C5 aircraft, an operational declaration to the Directorate-General for Air Transport, and the European insurance regime with no weight threshold.

It also assumes a controlled ground area that is genuinely held. A perimeter marked with tape that a passer-by steps over is not a controlled area, and the insurer will not fail to point that out on the day you make a claim.

What to go through before a shoot

The liability limit, to be discussed before anything else in this sector.

Cover for the loss of the footage. A memory card destroyed in a crash costs a few tens of euros; a day’s rushes cost a great deal more. That loss is handled separately, as an extension, and not every insurer offers it.

Territorial scope, if you film outside Belgium. Cover announced as worldwide almost always leaves the war and terrorism risk in the home territory.

A set-up worth the price of a car

This is where the values climb. Heavy airframe, stabilised gimbal, camera, set of lenses, video downlink receivers, monitoring screens: the whole thing often exceeds the price of a car, and it all travels to the set.

Two subtleties peculiar to this sector. Equipment hired from a production company has to be declared, because it does not belong to you and the hire contract makes you responsible for it. And the rushes themselves, that is to say the recorded data, fall under a different cover from the one on the physical media.

The certificate the production asks for

No serious production lets anyone fly without a certificate, and the document is often asked for before the quote is even signed. The production office checks the liability sum insured, the validity dates and sometimes an explicit mention of aerial filming.

Foreign productions filming in Belgium frequently add requirements of their own, notably a higher sum insured and a territorial extension. Those requests arrive late, a few days before the shoot, and a policy taken out in a hurry costs more than one arranged in advance.

Why the liability limit comes first

The liability limit comes before everything else, because the presence of people around the perimeter makes it structurally higher than elsewhere. The value of the equipment carried comes next, then the territorial question if you film outside Belgium.

The operational regime plays its part too: a shoot run under a standard scenario with a controlled ground area is not priced like filming in open country.

Read more: standard scenario STS-01 and the specific category, and the territorial scope of policies.