Drone insurance for real estate

Ten minutes above a terraced house, at 45 metres: the risk of collision is low, and the figures bear that out. The disputes arrive through another door.

The neighbour, not the facade

A complaint about overflight and image capture is the most frequent dispute in property photography. It almost never costs damages, but it costs time, letters from lawyers, and sometimes proceedings before the data protection authority.

Third-party liability does not cover that dispute: there is neither injury nor property damage. It is legal expenses cover that steps in.

And the one you already hold is not enough

Look for the aviation clause in your current legal expenses cover, household or business: it is there, in one form of words or another, and it leaves you alone with that dispute.

Only a policy dedicated to the drone takes on this kind of proceeding.

Two questions to ask before signing

That the legal expenses cover in your drone policy really covers a dispute with a neighbouring third party, and not only a dispute with your client.

That the limit is enough: proceedings carried to the end consume several thousand euros in costs quickly.

Light equipment, and a trap that goes with it

That lightness is misleading. Under 900 grams the insurance exemption exists, but it assumes strictly private use. Photographs delivered to an estate agency are a service: the exemption does not apply, whatever the aircraft weighs.

The client and their own liability

Estate agencies, notaries and developers ask for the certificate before the first job, and keep it on file. The reason is not administrative: if a neighbour complains about the overflight of their property, the agency that commissioned the images can find itself named alongside you.

A written mandate from the owner of the property, stating that they authorise aerial photography, spares you half the argument. It costs nothing and is signed at the same time as the sale mandate.

The cheapest sector to insure, and its exceptions

The low value of the equipment and the brevity of the flights put this sector among the cheapest to insure. Two things can push the premium back up: legal expenses cover, whose limit you choose, and the number of remote pilots covered if you work with freelancers.

The residential density of the areas you work in also counts, since it determines the applicable subcategory.

Flying over property that is not yours

Photographing a house from the air means flying over what surrounds it, and the neighbours have commissioned nothing. Belgian law knows no unlimited ownership of the airspace, but it protects privacy and the image of property wherever the photograph makes a person identifiable or reaches into private life.

In practice, three precautions clear away most of the risk. Frame the property for sale and not the neighbouring gardens. Avoid windows and occupied terraces. Where you can, warn the immediate neighbours before the flight: a complaint almost always comes from surprise, rarely from real nuisance.

If a dispute opens anyway, it is legal expenses cover that takes on the defence, provided it expressly covers work as a remote pilot.

Read more: legal expenses cover and its exclusions in detail, and the insurance obligation in Belgium.