Skyports and Flock Partner to Open up the Skies for Safe, Fully-Insured Drone Deliveries
London, UK – October 2019 — Flock is proud to announce itself as the exclusive risk partner of Skyports for its drone insurance. The collaborative partnership will enable Skyports to further the development of their drone delivery services, starting with initial ‘Beyond Visible Line of Sight’ (BVLOS) test flights in the UK, Belgium, Sweden and Finland.
Skyports are at the forefront of developing and implementing an end-to-end global drone delivery service, which will drastically reduce operating costs, revolutionise service and accelerate worldwide adoption. Skyports collaborates directly with its partners to create tailored drone solutions, secure regulatory approvals and enable projects to move swiftly from proof of concept to full-scale operations.
Skyports represents a truly innovative use case within the UK. The company has been steadily acquiring rooftop space within the UK and further afield globally, for use as “vertiports” to be used by passenger and cargo drones landing and takeoff within urban environments. These activities are further proof of Skyports’ position at the forefront of the industry, helping to usher in the next era of urban air mobility.
UK insurtech Flock who have already insured over 3,000 commercial drone businesses recently launched Flock Enterprise, an insurance offering tailored for the world’s largest drone fleets. The company has partnered with Skyports to design a bespoke Flock Enterprise insurance programme, one which evolves alongside the operating model of Skyports – from testing, through to operations. The custom programme includes scaled premiums based on test flying, flight durations and multi-flight discounts. The Flock Enterprise package responds to the developing experience of pilots, rewarding increasing experience of commercial flying with decreasing premiums.
Flock Enterprise is the latest offering from the Flock whose proprietary algorithms and rich data sets have helped it become the company with the world’s most in-depth understanding of flight risks. As well as offering insurance, Flock helps customers understand any significant risks their drone fleets are facing and take steps to reduce them. This leads to a lower likelihood of an incident and flexible premiums for operators.
Ed Leon Klinger, CEO of Flock, commented:
“Skyports is one of the truly groundbreaking companies reinventing the future of urban mobility. Our unique approach to real-time insurance will enable them to capitalise on granular risk insights to proactively mitigate flight risks, improve safety standards across their fleets, and reduce their insurance premiums.
“Flock Enterprise enables large drone companies to undertake increasingly complex flights and operations, from oil and gas inspections to autonomous package delivery. We’re proud that our technology is opening up airspace and accelerating growth of the industry.”
Duncan Walker, Managing Director of Skyports, commented:
“Skyports philosophy is to partner with companies early on to ensure we meet our customers’ needs and Flock provides this service for us. We have big plans to expand our global drone delivery operations and vertiport infrastructure offering and our tailored insurance cover with Flock ensures we do this safely whilst keeping costs low for our customers.”
Flock’s recent whitepaper into the emergence of exposure-based insurance for the drone industry reports that an increase in commercial activity will be the major driver in drones becoming a $100 billion market globally by 2020. The Skyports partnership signifies this shift is already underway and provides a glimpse into the future of urban mobility.