Finding the best drone insurance in 2026 doesn’t need to be a challenge. All you need to do is equip yourself with a bit of knowledge about your drone, what you’ll be using it for and the type of insurance that is available to you, and you’ll be well on your way to finding the best drone insurance policy for you.
In this article, we’ve put together a guide to help you find the best drone insurance policy for you; however, if you feel that you know all you need to know, or if you’ve saved this article and come back here to get a quote, feel free to click the button below.
What’s in this Article
Why Drone Insurance is an Essential Consideration
Drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), present incredible opportunities, whether you enjoy flying a drone in your spare time, use it to take fantastic photos, or use it as an integral part of your business.
At Coverdrone, we always promote the safe and compliant use of drones, wherever they are used and for whatever purpose. Whether you have a lightweight camera drone or a heavyweight cargo drone, it likely represents a significant investment for you or your business. Beyond the cost of your drone, you need to consider that flying one exposes you to potential liabilities and risks.
Drone insurance is specifically designed to address the risks associated with owning and operating a drone. Most home and business insurance policies don’t provide adequate coverage for drone operators, making specialist drone insurance an essential consideration for recreational and commercial drone users to protect their investments and financial futures.
What to Look For
Before we get into specific areas of cover, it’s beneficial to consider the nature of your drone use. Are you a hobbyist who flies on weekends during the summer, or a business owner who relies on your drone throughout the year? Your answer determines whether you should pursue a recreational or commercial policy, and whether you need an annual policy or something more flexible, like a monthly rolling or a Pay As You Fly (PAFL) policy. When choosing the best drone insurance policy for you, it’s essential to make sure that you find a provider that can tailor a policy to meet your needs, or at the very least, has an off-the-shelf option that fits your criteria.
For example, at Coverdrone, we offer the following policy length options:
- Recreational cover:
- PAFL policy options: one to six days, one week, one month
- Rolling monthly policy
- Annual policy
- Commercial cover:
- PAFL policy options: one to six days, one week, one month, three months or six months
- Rolling monthly policy
- Annual policy
We can also tailor a policy to meet your needs, starting with a base. For example, we could start with a base Public Liability (sometimes referred to as Third Party Liability) policy and add additional cover options to meet your needs. Ultimately, what it comes down to is how you fly your drone. If you have a drone, we’ll endeavour to find a policy that works for you to provide the cover you need. Just tell us what you need and we will help.
When looking for drone insurance, you must ensure your chosen policy complies with the regulatory body in your region of operation. For example, in the UK, you want an insurance policy that is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
There are many different aspects to drone insurance, and here’s what to look for when it comes to each element:
The Best Public Liability Drone Insurance
Arguably, the most fundamental component of any drone policy, Public Liability Drone Insurance, also referred to as Drone Liability cover, protects you against claims for third party property damage or third party bodily injury.
You may feel quite confident as a drone operator, and if you’re fortunate, you may have never experienced an incident in your drone flying career. But imagine an unavoidable malfunction causes your drone to crash into someone’s property, or worse, injures them. Without sufficient liability cover, you would be personally responsible for all repair costs and any resulting legal fees. The “best” Public Liability cover offers limits sufficient to cover you if the worst were to happen in the environment where you operate your drone.
For many insurance policies, the public liability limit is £1,000,000 GBP (€1,300,000 EUR/$1,500,000 AUD/$2,000,000 NZD/$1,250,000 CAD*); however, this may vary depending on your requirements. For example, at Coverdrone, our minimum public liability starts at £1,000,000 GBP, but that’s just the minimum. Liabilities can be made available up to £25,000,000 GBP (€32,500,000 EUR/$37,500,000 AUD/$50,000,000 NZD/$31,250,000 CAD*) or even more, depending on your requirements.
The Best Drone Equipment Cover
We appreciate that your drone is an expensive investment, far more than just a battery in a plastic case with motors and rotors; it’s a sophisticated piece of technology that includes high-value sensors, gimbals, and cameras. The best drone equipment cover protects this physical asset.
While Public Liability Cover protects you against third party property damage or third party bodily injury, Equipment Cover can protect your investment against accidental damage, theft, or total loss. When comparing policies, review the valuation method for your equipment (“as new” replacement cost or actual cash value) and whether the policy covers ground-based accessories and payload equipment, such as expensive sensors and cameras. You should also check that all risks to your drone equipment that you want to be protected against are covered (for example, accidental damage, theft, loss, bird strikes, loss in water etc). At Coverdrone, we can cover you for all these risks if you choose to include Equipment Cover.
The Best Flyaway Cover
A flyaway is a terrifying event for any drone operator. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a “flyaway” is an incident wherein a drone operator loses control of their drone, and it goes off out of control into the distance, often never to be recovered. Flyway cover provides protection if your drone is lost due to unexplained signal interference, GPS failure, or other non-pilot-induced events, ensuring you are not left footing the bill for a lost aircraft.
Not all insurance policies include cover for flyaways as standard, so you might think that finding the best flyaway cover would be a challenge, but some of the best insurers will include cover for flyaways and advertise clearly that they offer it.
At Coverdrone, we include flyaway cover as standard with our Public Liability and Equipment cover. Our insurance provides drone operators with peace of mind so they can focus on safely operating their drone without worrying about what their insurance covers while their valuable equipment is in the air. If you want drone insurance that includes flyaway cover, get a quote today:
The Best Professional Indemnity for Drone Operators
If your work as a drone operator involves providing data, advice, or services that could result in an incident causing a client’s financial loss, securing the best drone professional indemnity cover is essential.
Professional Indemnity cover is different from Public Liability cover in that it protects you, as a commercial operator, for any negligent act, error, or omission in the conduct of business as the owner/operator of the insured drone.
For example, if you provided a building company with inaccurate data following a drone survey, that mistake could cost them a lot of money once they begin work. Because that mistake cost their company money by supplying inaccurate data, they may try to recover their costs from you. Professional Indemnity cover can protect you against a claim of this nature.
At Coverdrone, we can include professional indemnity cover with all of our Commercial Drone Insurance policies. Click the ‘get a quote’ button below to start tailoring your Commercial Drone Insurance policy today:
Tailoring Your Drone Insurance to How You’ll Fly
Before deciding on which cover you want to include in your insurance, you first need to have a clear understanding of the use of your drone. For example, if you only intend to use your drone for fun, such as flying it for your own personal enjoyment or to take photos purely for leisure, you likely require Recreational Drone Insurance. However, if you plan to use a drone as part of work for your business, whether you are employed or freelance, or if someone stands to gain commercially from the use of the drone, you’ll need Commercial Drone Insurance (Public Liability insurance is a legal requirement for commercial drone operators).
We’ve outlined some key considerations for finding the best recreational and commercial drone insurance options below, but if you’re unsure what type of drone operator you are, read our drone user article first to help you figure it out.
The Best Recreational Drone Insurance
If you fly your drone for your own enjoyment rather than for business use, you want to find the best recreational drone insurance. Some countries have made Public Liability cover mandatory even for hobbyist drone operators. Hence, it’s essential to check the local laws and regulations in the region where you want to fly your drone before flying to ensure compliance.
As with any insurance policy, you want to find a balance between affordability and the level of cover you want, from a reputable insurer you can trust. Look for policies that suit your needs, whether that means they include the level of cover you need, such as covering your equipment and providing Public Liability Cover, give you the flexibility of a monthly rolling cover or Pay As You Fly (PAFL) policy or the convenience of an annual policy that saves you money if you happen to fly year-round. The most important thing is to find the best drone insurance for you.
You can read more about recreational drone insurance on our recreational drone insurance page.
The Best Commercial Drone Insurance
Running a business with a drone demands higher standards. The best commercial drone insurance is characterised by high liability limits, often £1 million GBP (€1,300,000 EUR/$1,500,000 AUD/$2,000,000 NZD/$1,250,000 CAD*) or more, the ability to add diverse cover options (such as chemical liability, cargo liability, data liability) and extensions (additional insureds, financial interests, training extensions, waiver of subrogation etc), and compliance with international regulations. For example, EC785/2004 is a regulation that makes Liability insurance for commercial drone operators a legal requirement in the UK and EU.
The best Commercial Drone Insurance policy should also be tailored to meet the needs of your business, adjusting to be available when you need it, whether that’s at specific times of the year or all year round, and having the ability to add to the policy as your business grows.
If you want to learn more about Commercial Drone Insurance, visit our Commercial Drone Insurance page.
Finding the Best Drone Insurance to Meet Your Needs
If you want to go beyond simply choosing the best recreational and commercial drone insurance, start by thinking about your specific needs and finding an insurer that meets them.
We’ve put together a few examples of some of the best insurance options for a couple of requirement possibilities below:
The Best Industrial Drone Insurance
If you use a drone to support your construction, oil and gas, or heavy infrastructure operations, you may want more specialised cover, something that the best industrial drone insurance can provide. Ensure you look for commercial drone insurance with liability limits sufficient to cover your operations in the environments where you operate. You may also want a policy that accounts for complex operations such as heavy-lift aircraft, operations near human activity, specialist payloads, and flights beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS).
You can find out more about the types of cover available on Commercial Drone Insurance policies by visiting our Commercial Drone Insurance page.
The Best International Drone Insurance
If your hobby or work takes you across borders, the best international drone insurance ensures your cover remains valid wherever you fly. It is vital to find an insurance provider that (as we do on all our policies as standard) offers worldwide cover (subject to certain territorial exclusions) and whose policy structure accommodates differing regulatory requirements, such as those set by EASA in Europe or the FAA in the US.
Other Things to Consider
We’ve explored specific scenarios for insuring your drone, but there are additional general considerations when choosing the best drone insurance provider.
A Proven Track Record
It’s never been easier to check whether a company can back up its claims, with review sites like Feefo, which only show reviews from legitimate customers, and countless others highlighting where companies are doing things well and where they need to improve. It’s worth looking into sites like these to ensure an insurance company has a trusted, proven track record of keeping its customers satisfied as you find the best drone insurance provider.
With over 230,000 policyholders worldwide, we’re proud of our track record at Coverdrone, which is why we display it prominently on our website. You can view our Feefo reviews on our Reviews page. If we win awards for our first-class customer service, we publish stories about them on our social accounts and blog.
The Right Policy: A Peace of Mind Investment
Finding the best drone insurance is more than just getting a good deal; it’s about finding the perfect fit for you, your use case, environment, and financial exposure. It’s also about finding a reputable insurance company with a proven track record. Carefully evaluate the drone insurance company you want to go with, make sure they fulfil your criteria, and once you’ve secured your insurance, ensure that you fly safely and legally, following all laws and regulations to keep your policy valid.
If you feel that Coverdrone meets the criteria for your best drone insurance provider and you want to get a quote from us today, click the button below to get started:
*Public Liability limits correct at time of writing (15/01/26)
Image Attribution
- Photo by david henrichs on Unsplash
- Photo by Dose Media on Unsplash
