That’s why a right to privacy is so important. You never know what innocuous things anyone is looking out for.
Insurance companies are the scum of the earth. I’m sure Big Daddy Gov will put them in their place. /s
They are scum of the earth because they take advantage of their position to extract as much money from their customers and then deny legit claims by default and make making a claim as much of a pain in the ass for the policy holder as possible. But this is just standard insurance practice, if you don’t want people looking at your stuff, don’t ask them to insure it. Often a luxury only the rich can afford, but that’s a separate problem.
The worst part is if the company fucks you, too bad so sad. But if you fuck them? Welcome to prison.
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Of course they have the right to inspect the property, with the owner’s informed consent and with clear-cut boundaries of what they’re looking for. The owner needs to have the chance to correct the offending circumstances before a policy should be canceled.
Consider this case: You want to refurbish the storage room and clean it out onto the lawn while you’re painting it. The paint dries and 6 hours later you put your stuff back in. However, in these 6 hours a drone took a picture of a gas canister on your lawn. The insurance company cancels the policy because you’re storing dangerous materials.
This cannot be in anyone’s best interest.
Insurance is supposed to be a service where everyone pays a predictable amount so that they have some protection in the event of something catastrophic happening. It’s reasonable for them to assess risks, and it’s reasonable for them to charge higher premiums for riskier situations, it’s reasonable for them to ask for remediation and eventually cancel policies if someone doesn’t abide by previously agreed terms.
But there’s a line between that and “it’s fire season, send up a drone so we can cancel the riskiest x% and boost our profits”, particularly if that’s happening mid policy, and particularly if it’s in a situation where those people will find it hard to get new insurance.
This is also why insurance fraud is such a major offense. If too many people don’t play by the rules, the whole system will collapse and leave everyone uninsured.
As you say, it’s not unreasonable for them to charge more for riskier insurance, so it’s not even like cutting the riskiest x% would or should boost profits… If they think the risk has grown, raise the premium at the next renewal opportunity and their profits should be just fine even if they have to pay out
I agree that the insurance company has a right to regular inspections to spot potential risks and take action before something happens. But they should then come up with a solution rather than cancel the policy. If they told the homeowner to clean up the backyard or they will have to increase the policy/cancel it then that would be acceptable. But letting insurance companies cancel whenever they feel like it makes no sense and defeats the purpose. What’s next? Flood insurance cancels your policy because heavy rain is expected?
But they definitely should have to schedule a time for the inspection. No one should be able to just film your backyard whenever they feel like it. There are tons of things one might do in their backyard they don’t want others to film.
This is clearly invasion of privacy. Just think about it. If insurance companies start collection you car data like at what speed you drive etc. They can cancel policy if we violate traffic laws. If they collect healthcare data they can cancel policy for abortion or drinking etc
If health insurance gets access to our DNA they could even know if there’s a history of illness in your family, or how prone you are to drug/alcohol/cigarette addiction, and use that info to increase your rates. It’s just one of the reasons why volunteering that data away freely to companies like 23andme is a terrible idea.
They do collect that on an opt in basis with the promise of additional discounts if you’re a good driver. Some give you a device you plug into your OBDII port, others get the telemetry directly from your car. I drive a Hyundai and I have the option of toggling on sharing anonymized driving data as well as a toggle to share your actual data with insurance companies for special offers.
All cars now have “black boxes” that track the telemetry of the vehicle. It is no longer optional. In the event of an accident, this data is used to help determine cause.
Edit: I did not make this up, the response calling it the ECU has no idea about this apparently, but it does not make it any less true. In the US all manufacturers have to install telemetry devices.
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NHTSA estimates that approximately 96 percent of model year 2013 passenger cars and light-duty vehicles were already equipped with EDR capability. The significance of this measure is in the specifics of what data it requires such devices to collect and its guidelines for how the data should be accessed. - Black Box 101: Understanding Event Data Recorders
Event Data Recorder - Supported Vehicle List
I will debate part of what the previous poster said, in that EDRs are technically optional, as there doesn’t seem to be any US law that requires them.
But automakers benefit from the data they provide, so I’d expect just about every new car contains one.
We know for a fact Tesla, for example, uses Video Event Data Recorders, and they have near total access to any footage recorded by the vehicle at any time. That’s one big reason I’d never buy one.
Satellite images, which give them the same information about your yard has been available for decades and I don’t hear people complaining about cool clear images of anyone’s yard invading their privacy.
Satellite images can be bought by anyone with money.
Wait, isn’t this technically “criminal trespassing”?
IANALAIANYL. In the days before the internet, I had a family member who worked for an insurance company. Buried deep in the contract was language that allowed agents of said insurance company to come on the property at any time. Her job basically was to go to people’s houses and walk around taking photos, usually at policy start or in the case of a claim - before and after. If anybody harassed her, they were at risk of having their home insurance dropped. This was Miami in the 1980s fwiw.
I’ve worked for companies that do this my entire professional career. They do work all over the US to this day. It’s just standard property insurance practice. It’d be dumb to insure a property, for both damage and liability, sight unseen. They send many notifications via mail, automated phone and the worker directly calls before heading over there, no one wants to get shot. It surprises me a bit people don’t know about it but, even though I’ve done work in the industry for decades, I’ve never see one of the inspectors at my house. I hadn’t heard of anyone using drones yet but they’ve used bulk flyover images taken from planes with special cameras for at least 15 years.
Sounds like a good way to get shot in some states.
Wow, that’s insanely illegal
Source?
It’s not. Source: I do work for the companies that do it which includes every insurance company you’ve ever heard of.
You don’t own the airspace over your property. The only way someone might get in trouble for flying a drone over your house is if they were looking in windows or harassing people somehow. Most pics from a drone aren’t a lot different from satellite photography.
We actually do own the airspace over our houses. Not as high as planes or space, but a drone probably would from my skimming of this article.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/aviation.uslegal.com/ownership-of-airspace-over-property/%3Famp
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I’m not a lawyer, nor do I have the full context of the legislation you’re quoting, but my interpretation of that paragraph is that it only applies to aircrafts that are carrying passengers.
. . . in the air space in possession of another, by a person who is traveling in an aircraft, is privileged . . .
You’re the one who does this for a hobby, though. I’m sure that you know the laws more than I do :)
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The complaint is not for satellite or airplane photography, it’s for a drone
Please read the article before commenting
*“A customer says that someone on the phone said ‘a drone picture’ and the company denies it, saying they use other imaging.” * Customer could be mistaken, whoever was on the phone may not know that “drone” covers things from 737 Recon Drone to a $10 aliexpress quadcopter.
I’ll bet $50 it was either a high altitude drone or a satellite image bought from an imaging company, as they’ve been doing for at least 20 years, and not some quadcopter flying just above his yard.
Please think before commenting.
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Not necessarily. You’re not in faa airspace until a particular height…
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The same reason flying airplanes isn’t “criminal trespassing”. Satellite and aerial photography happen really high up.
No insurance company used a small toy drone to fly 50’ over his property for pictures.
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People downvote things they don’t want to be true.
It’s strange. It doesn’t work that way.
Not even if we downvote extra hard?
I had my policy canceled for having a 15 year old roof, no heads up or chance to remediate any actual issues. Insurance companies are just dicking Californians because they hate being regulated.
Next week’s article “Insurance company cancelled the policy of local reporter”
Now fly a drone over their office to see if they like it
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LOL! They might sue you for doing that.
We only use fixed wing aircraft
Like a Predator drone? 🤔
In Australia some local councils use aerial photos to check for structures and developments without a permit. Built a new deck without the right paperwork, put in a big shed without approval, expect a knock on the door soon.
Australia is a surveillance state that’s even worse then the US
I…love the logic of “I broke the rules and they got to know? HOW DARE THEY”.
Like…this is so stupidly silly I can’t. Like a child getting pissed off it was found out.
Nothing anyone loves more then not being able to do what they want on their own property they probably spent most of their lives working for
But yes, freedom and liberty are quite clearly “childish” concepts in your underdeveloped brain
Yeah, go on, insult me. Great argument ^^
You know the rules that apply on the property. By breaking them, you are performing concious action, knowing what consequences may it yield. Do not be pissed when these consequences come. Sheesh.
Where’s the limit on acceptable surveillance on your own property?
Should the state be able to check for unlicensed structures by drone?
What about sending investigators into your backyard? Into your house?
Just because people break rules doesn’t give the state the right to inspect their citizens any way they please.
From what I recall, your property ends where airspace begins so…yes? Same as Mark, your neighbour. He, too, can get a drone and watch your backyard. Now inside of building is somewhat private ( IIRC windows this privacy legally ).
And also - how else do you propose for state to be able to enforce their code and licenses? You agree to their terms when you get the property. How do they make sure you actually follow them?
Nah, they’ve got a point. Being mad you got caught is kinda silly.
Laws that prevent people from doing what they want on their own property when it doesn’t hurt anyone else are completely unjustifiable tools of oppression. Anything that helps the state enforce those laws is inherently bad.
Why do you think the laws exist in the first place. Because there is some hurt to somebody else. You just can’t see it.
Tell me more about how me building a shed for myself that nobody else ever even looks at causes harm to anyone.
If it’s not built to code to code it can pose all sorts of safety hazards to your neighbours or future owners of your property. If you don’t bother getting approval you didn’t bother building it properly either.
At the slightly more silly end, your shed could lower the value of the neighbours property (because it looks like a meth lab, or just a general hillbilly grotto) and the law holds financial harm higher than physical harm most of the time.
Edit: also it’s not just you, it’s any meth head who decides to build their own shed. Laws need to cater for the lowest common denominator.
If it’s not to code, just tear it down before selling the place. A not up to code shed on your own property isn’t a threat to your neighbors unless they’re trespassing on your property. Arguing that it shouldn’t be allowed because it looks bad is the real-estate equivalent of trying to pass a law to force women to smile at all times so that men have eye candy.
An electrical fire that starts in your shed isn’t confined to your property by magic force fields. Your improperly installed wiring is a threat to the neighborhood.
Improperly wiring something up on your property with the risk of causing a fire makes that action no longer confined to your property, even if before the fire, all of the wiring is on your side of the line. There’s simply no reasonable way for just a shed without the accidental pyrotechnics can bring enough risk of harm to your neighbors that it could be considered a violation of their rights.
Happens in the US, too. I know someone who got in trouble for building a shed that connected to their house by roof (covered walkway). Then the county came and inspected in person, and it turns out the shed was too large even on its own so they were dealing with that last I heard.
Well clearly this is illegal on so many levels
Unfortunately, not necessarily.
Which levels?
Shit, I guess I better mow my lawn and finally donate that disuesed truck to cars 4 kids.
Insurance companies use ariel and satellite photos. So do municipalities to check for unpermited work.
They’re not going to drive out to each customer with a toy drone. They’re essentially using google map satellite view.
Can we stop the hysteria and take a few minutes to think things through?
If they’re using Google or other public sources of satellite images, they wouldn’t have up to date pictures. Images of my own house from that are from almost 12 years ago, which makes this even worse because they could be basing decisions on things that no longer exist.
Private more up-to-date sources aren’t very expensive.
edit: An example
And I’d respond by flying a decent sized drone with a special gift right into their main office.
Are you saying you’d bomb their office?
Sue them?
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Fun fact: Twitter’s old logo was named that in honour of Larry birds legacy. As a long time fan of Larry, this gives me another reason to hate Elon.
Edit:feel free to laugh at a dumb guy like me
Lost Lemmings.
It’s my fault, you’re right 😓, sorry friend
