Martin was unhappy that a claim he raised for his damaged drone wasn’t covered by his gadget insurance policy.
What happened
Martin was out using his drone to take some aerial footage around the woodland near his home. When bringing his drone back down to earth, a gust of wind knocked it into a tree, damaging it quite heavily.
That evening, Martin made a claim on his gadget insurance policy via the insurers online form. When prompted to pick which gadget was damaged, he selected “drone” from the drop-down list on the form. Martin’s insurer told him they wouldn’t honour his claim, saying drones aren’t covered due to being “unmanned aircraft”.
Martin referred a complaint to us referencing the fact that the policy doesn’t make it clear it excludes drones, further confused by the fact that drones were provided as an option on the claim form. He added that the main purpose of drones is to take video and photographs and cameras are covered.
What we said
In Martin’s policy booklet, the term ‘gadget’ is defined as a “self-contained, portable device, having the design intention of supporting multimedia applications or obtaining multimedia content”.
We also noted that the policy doesn’t refer to drones nor does it refer to excluding unmanned aircraft.
As Martin’s drone had the ability to support and obtain multimedia content and taking photos and video was something Martin specifically used his drone for, we asked the insurer to assess the claim on the basis the drone is a gadget as defined in the policy. We also didn’t think Martin received good service with unnecessary delays and confusion over the online form, so we recommended the insurer pay £50 for the inconvenience.