ydqa 38

John Dickow: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back. Another episode of Your Drone Questions Answered. I'm John Ticco, here to answer your drone questions that you submit. And today's drone question is, How can drones be used to help file an insurance claim?

so today I have Bobby Beard. He's an independent adjuster who's used the drones exactly for that. So, Bobby, thank you for being here today. so I'm just going to let you introduce yourself. talk a little bit about how you got into this, how you got into starting using a drone for this kind of work.

Bobby Beard: So I'm Bobby Beard, as you said. I started about 12 years ago in the, flood insurance, industry. did that for roughly 12 years. last year, maybe beginning of this year, took on a homeowner's insurance. Wanted to learn that side of the insurance. Got deployed to Nashville, Tennessee during a big storm event that came through and there was lots of, roof damages.

So while out there, I met other, you know, roofing companies that were coming out and they were using drones. And I was like, this is interesting. And obviously being in Nashville is a lot of two story, three story homes. And so while getting out there and kind of meeting these roofers and they were using drones and I had to start getting on these roofs and climbing around.

And of course I'm getting up there in age. So I was like, you know, this is, this is some of this, you know, parts of this is [00:01:00] dangerous. So that got me thinking about getting a drone. So I went and bought one and started using it, you know, obviously without a license right away, and realized I didn't need a license.

So as soon as I got done with that deployment, I came home and started doing some research on how to get licensed. Cause I had no idea. I didn't know how strict it was or anything until I started digging into it. during my research, I found that it seemed like everybody recommended, you know, drone launch Academy.

so I chose them, chose you guys, you know, obviously, went ahead and took all the classes courses was extremely hard in my opinion. It was difficult to get the license, but. Um, and took it and aced it and was pretty happy about that. but yeah, so, you know, just doing, the insurance claims on roofs.

There's sections I couldn't get to obviously. And I would throw the drone up and take photos and, kind of went

John Dickow: from there. Very cool. Very cool. And so getting into the meat of the question, some ways it's a little obvious. I mean, drone has that advantage of just launching something into the air.

To take a look at it, but how exactly are you doing this? What are you looking for? how does that work when you put a drone up and begin an inspection?

Bobby Beard: typically you've either got a hail storm [00:02:00] damage or you have wind storm damage. So I'm looking for hail impacts, which I was quite shocked to learn that the drone could focus in close enough.

That you could actually see the impacts from hell. Um, the other one again would be wind. And that's where the shingles have let loose and they're creased. So, you know, getting up there and scanning the roof, I'd go, you know, obviously left to right or right to left. And scan, taking pictures the whole time.

And then when I get back to my computer, download the, photos. And I could go through and actually identify the damages. and luckily the insurance company I was working for at the time, the carrier, they would let us use drones. So you know, if I couldn't get up high enough, you know, and I would label it drone footage and they would accept it.

Of course I would, you know, annotate, you know, make highlights of what the damage was on the photo itself.

John Dickow: Oh, excellent. And so what type of drone do you use, for this kind of work? I imagine it's got to take, you know, at least good enough. imagery.

Bobby Beard: honestly, I got the, uh, Air 2S. Okay. And it's been, it's been perfect for what I need.

I know that I think there's higher models, but for what I've needed, it's been perfect.

John Dickow: Very cool. Now, do you use any, software after, you know, say [00:03:00] after you go up and you, fly the drone, you come back with your images, you get to your computer. Is there any software you're using to help identify, potential damage, or do you just know what to look for?

Bobby Beard: I know what to look for. However, I have seen there, it seems like there are some programs out there that's coming out recently that's, that's used just for that purposes. I guess you can upload the, the photos and it scans the photos and identifies the damages for you. that's something I look, you know, look forward to looking into.

I haven't done it yet. currently I just download them, take a look at them and I can identify the damage myself.

John Dickow: Yeah, and obviously you've got the experience when you know what you're looking for. So if I can ask, what do you look for in, for an example, like say in a hailstorm?

Bobby Beard: Well, the main thing is like an impact.

So you have two different impacts. You have, you know, just every day people walking on the roof, not every day, but people walking on the roof, but in the hill. It's kind of hard to describe, but there's a certain pattern you're looking for. It's almost like a volcano. you can see where the, the granulars have risen around the edge, where you can see it's like an impact that didn't scat all, you didn't like slide off.

It's, it's impacted. And it's usually a circular nature, or if it's coming at an angle, it'd be like a U [00:04:00] shape.

John Dickow: Okay. Now that makes sense. Now you mentioned you had worked for an insurance company. So you were working kind of through them to do this kind of work. Correct. and I'm not sure, I'm kind of just throwing this out there.

I have no idea, but I can imagine there's some kind of cost savings for that company, knowing that you can get maybe a drone up in the air instead of. a person on the roof or anything like that. Is there any, what's kind of that benefit, between having a person go up there, and having a drone up there, or is it really just convenience?

Bobby Beard: Well, it's a lot of things. It's safety. Number one, um, and you put yourself in some positions that, you know, if you need to get those photos and you're not quite comfortable with it. you're pushing yourself to where maybe you shouldn't push yourself. so the safety is a huge aspect of that for me personally.

second aspect is, you know, we can, you know, once we get to a certain height of a house, two story, the particular carrier I was looking for, let us call in what they call ladder assist, which is a roofing company or somebody like that, that's trained, it's got, you know, rope and harness, that's. You know, safety certified to climb those roofs, if we can avoid having to [00:05:00] call, you know, secondary company and to do the inspection for us.

and we can capture that footage with a drone. And of course it saves that money safety. it's a lot of different

John Dickow: things. Okay. the advantage is clear, I think when it comes to using a drone. And I think you found yourself a pretty interesting niche here, like use case to, to use a drone within an existing industry and existing business.

A lot of people at. drone launch Academy, want to do just that. They they're looking for ways to, either start their own business or apply a drone to what they're already doing. And that's. Exactly. Kind of what you did, which is kind of cool. So I like to ask this question towards the end of each interview what kind of advice do you have for somebody who's looking to do that?

And it doesn't have to be insurance. but somebody who has no idea how drones work, how to operate it, but have that interest, what would you say to them?

Bobby Beard: You know, it's funny that, I use this drone for this particular purpose of insurance, but also I own a couple of restaurants and a couple of bars here in Panama City, Florida.

we've started doing some, you know, some advertisement on social media, Facebook, TikTok, and I've actually started deploying that drone in some of those advertisements, [00:06:00] you know, getting overalls, overviews of the buildings. and since then I've connected with other local people that do drawn footage for like weddings or, you know, for real estate.

So I've been talking to them and it's funny that they have enough work that they're offering me to come out and do some drawn footage for them. so I think there's a lot of potential out there. I think that in my opinion, and especially in my area, there's not a whole lot of people that do it or doesn't do it professionally.

there's a lot of market out there just reached out to real estate agents and offering them the ability to do drone footage of a, you know, a neighborhood or a home they're selling, wedding events. There's so many events in every town that you get drone footage of that you could charge for.

So just having that ability, just learning. You know, just using it as a necessity for insurance and then getting the license has opened up this a whole other world that I haven't really thought about.

John Dickow: that's very cool. And so, yeah, you're involved with all, not just the insurance industry, but the restaurant and you're finding ways to apply that there.

And, that's very cool. It sounds like it can only grow from there. And so I, I appreciate you sharing that. And, you did all the right things. as well. I mean, you, found something, you found it interesting, you [00:07:00] tried it and then you got certified to do it. so that's just another really important step and, a great example for, our listeners.

So, Bobby, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your experience here and, sharing how you apply a drone. within the insurance industry and do this kind of work. it is inspiring to a lot of people in the DLA to do that kind of thing for themselves. So I want to thank you for coming out again and, and knowing now that you have done work outside of insurance with a drone, maybe, if we get a question related, we might reach out to you again, if we have anything to do with videography.

All right, Bobby, thanks for joining me and hey, you can submit your own drone questions and we will find the answer to them. You can submit them at ydqa. io. We'll see him. We'll find someone who can answer it. Or if you're part of the drone launch connect community, go ahead, type it in there. We'll see it.

We'll look for the answer until then. We'll see in the sky.