Flock to help support future of unmanned aviation thanks to new partnership with Sompo International

Con­nect­ed insur­ance spe­cial­ist Flock has teamed up with yet anoth­er lead­ing avi­a­tion under­writer as it con­tin­ues to expand glob­al­ly. Its lat­est part­ner­ship with Som­po Inter­na­tion­al now enables Euro­pean pilots to access com­mer­cial drone insur­ance in min­utes. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, the deal also sup­ports the future of unmanned avi­a­tion by increas­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal insur­ance need­ed for emerg­ing use-cas­es, such as drone car­go deliv­er­ies, fly­ing air taxi pas­sen­ger flights and drone swarm shows. This makes Flock the first spe­cial­ist insur­er to offer cus­tom poli­cies tai­lored to these emerg­ing use cas­es. 

This news fol­lows the launch of Flock­’s motor fleet insur­ance at the end of last year and the intro­duc­tion of Flock Fri­days, a new online show fea­tur­ing inter­views with the most excit­ing com­pa­nies in the drone indus­try. 

Ed Leon Klinger, CEO of Flock, said: “By com­bin­ing Flock’s data-dri­ven approach to risk with Som­po International’s sig­nif­i­cant exper­tise and estab­lished glob­al dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, this part­ner­ship marks an impor­tant mile­stone in the evo­lu­tion of drone insur­ance glob­al­ly.

“Vehi­cles are increas­ing­ly con­nect­ed, autonomous, and pow­ered by real-time data. At Flock, we’re build­ing insur­ance prod­ucts to accom­mo­date for this new world and so it was vital to part­ner with an under­writer that shares our ambi­tious vision.” 

By com­bin­ing Som­po International’s avi­a­tion and aero­space insur­ance under­writ­ing expe­ri­ence with Flock’s real-time risk algo­rithms, both com­pa­nies say this part­ner­ship will her­ald a new era of insur­ance built for an increas­ing­ly autonomous and con­nect­ed world.

Flock’s range of mar­ket-lead­ing prod­ucts in the drone indus­try already pro­tect thou­sands of pilots across the UK and Europe and the com­pa­ny is also explor­ing how its pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy could be used to rein­vent insur­ance for oth­er spe­cial­ty lines.

Som­po Inter­na­tion­al will sup­port Flock’s aggres­sive growth strat­e­gy with the two com­pa­nies work­ing togeth­er to make it eas­i­er for com­plex projects to access fair, flex­i­ble and trans­par­ent poli­cies.

Julian James, CEO, Inter­na­tion­al Insur­ance, Som­po Inter­na­tion­al said: “At this time of sig­nif­i­cant change across the busi­ness land­scape, insur­ers, bro­kers and dis­rup­tors need to work togeth­er to devel­op inno­v­a­tive respons­es to a raft of emerg­ing and evolv­ing risks.

“Drones have mul­ti­ple appli­ca­tions and are set to trans­form a range of indus­tries from e‑commerce to risk man­age­ment and cri­sis response. The sheer breadth of appli­ca­tions means the glob­al com­mer­cial drone mar­ket is expect­ed to be worth in excess of US$40 bil­lion by 2025.

“Flock is a mar­ket leader in this sec­tor with tremen­dous poten­tial; it has a proven busi­ness mod­el util­is­ing a trans­fer­able and scal­able tech­nol­o­gy that has already deliv­ered unique prod­ucts and an impres­sive growth sto­ry.”

Andrew Met­calfe, Som­po International’s Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Lon­don Mar­ket Aero­space Insur­ance, added: “Flock’s tech­nol­o­gy plat­form has the abil­i­ty to deliv­er sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits, includ­ing the real-time use of data to pro­vide insight into devel­op­ing effi­cient oper­a­tions and enhanced safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tems, increas­ing the oper­a­tional foot­print of Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cles.”