State Farm has been granted the first national waiver to any company in the U.S. by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The national waiver allows the company to conduct drone operations over people and flights beyond the pilot's visual line of sight through November 2022.

“It's been a team effort to make drone technology a reality,” Robert Yi, senior vice president for property & casualty claims, said in a press release. “The waiver will provide our claims specialist with another way to efficiently help customers. We can use drones to assess on-the-ground damage and deploy resources.”

Previous waivers State Farm was granted were limited to a short time frame and to specific geographic areas impacted by hurricanes. Current FAA regulations restrict pilots from flying drones beyond their visual line of sight and over groups of people. In a catastrophe situation, access to an impacted area may be challenged by water, debris and damage to infrastructure.

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The timeline leading up to the first national waiver

  • March 2015 — State Farm was the first insurance company to receive FAA permission to test drones for commercial use. In November of that year, State Farm began working with the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP) at Virginia Tech to understand drone safety concerns.
  • April 2016 — State Farm began conducting test flights for aerial roof inspections. Over the next year, more than 400 test flights were conducted.
  • May 2018 — The Virginia team, led by MAAP, is selected as one of 10 teams for the FAA Integration Pilot Program (IPP). State Farm was the only insurance company selected for any of the IPP teams.
  • September/October 2018 — Following Hurricanes Florence and Michael, State Farm was the first and only insurance company to be granted an FAA waiver for drone operations beyond visual line of sight and operations over people for catastrophe damage assessment.
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For more coverage like this, explore Property Casualty 360's Drones & insurance Instant Insights page.