An Emerging Market – Flying Taxi Insurance

Initiatives like UberAIR aim for flying taxis to be implemented in cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Paris, and Dubai by 2023. While this rapid deployment goal is advantageous for the consumer, it has created an entirely new mode of transportation, which corresponds to an untapped niche market for insurance firms.

The closest analogous insurance structure to a flying taxi that exists today is an aviation insurance policy. Many aviation insurance policies work similar to car insurance, except additional factors such as pilot certification, aircraft condition and quality, maintenance, and number of flight hours may all factor in to premiums so that they’re more accurate.

One unique aspect of aviation insurance is the duality of coverage – not only must an aircraft be insured in the air, it must also be insured for any possible incident that occurs on the ground. This is a thread of similarity to flying taxis, which will operate over densely populated areas with a frequency greater than most aircraft. Since this is the case, aviation insurance firms that plan to provide flying taxi insurance policies will undoubtedly be required to adjust their current aviation policies to accommodate an autonomous flying taxi operation on a commercial scale.

Why it’s important: Again, the current insurance policy that most closely resembles this planned commercial flying taxi business structure is that of a commercial airline, but the format of airline policies has remained relatively unchanged for the past 30 years. Flying cars and taxis will require shifts in policy that will create an entirely new niche for insurance firms. While no aircraft insurers have come forth announcing that they will be providing such coverage, it is not unreasonable to expect work behind the scenes ongoing currently – there are large insurance policy contracts to be won by insurers competing for wide-spread commercial flying taxi operations.

Source

• Insurance Business Magazine
• Image // Terrafugia