there are 362,000 general
aviation aircraft worldwide, and 199,000 (or roughly 55%) are based in the United States. The large number of insured general aviation (GA) aircraft certainly benefits the UAS community and we anticipate that with the addition of millions of UAS to the fleet, UAS will likewise provide substantial insurance benefit to GA fleet as a whole simply through the increased spread of risk.
No single insurer has the resources to retain a risk the size of a major airline, or even a substantial proportion of such a risk. The catastrophic nature of aviation insurance can be measured in the relatively small number of losses that have cost insurers hundreds of millions of dollars (Aviation accidents and incidents). That exposure impacts GA because the insurers that cover major airlines are the same insurers that cover GA and the emerging UAS industry. That level of exposure to few insurers with a relatively small spread of risk across the market makes aviation “special”.
UAS are now special. Like it or not, UAS owners and operators have become part of aviation and are subject to all of the same expectations, exposures and share of the risk. It’s important for UAS operators to learn and understand as much about aviation as possible as they begin to negotiate the steep curve of integration.