Drones, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS), are rapidly gaining the attention of virtually every industry as a means of gaining greater efficiency in operations and reducing costs.  Drone use has grown exponentially over the past few years, following development of drones for personal and commercial use. Because the use of drones has grown so rapidly, it's been difficult to keep up with all of the possibilities their use offers to industries, including the insurance industry. While most of us have heard about Amazon's proposed use of drones to deliver packages to customers in thirty minutes or less, or Walmart's plan to use drones to handle inventory at its warehouses, there are many more uses being implemented, tested or proposed.

 Law Enforcement

There are approximately thirty-four U.S. agencies using drones in public safety and law enforcement, an increase of over 500 percent in drone use over the past two years. The functions most advantageous to law enforcement offer not only efficiency in operations but improve safety and help save lives. Some uses include bomb detection, search and rescue, traffic collisions, active shooter investigations, SWAT and tactical operations, analysis of crime scenes, surveillance operations and crowd monitoring. Anytime a drone can be used to go into a dangerous situation it improves the safety of our law enforcement and civilians, and a drone can capture a bird's eye view of crime scenes, accidents, disasters and searches more rapidly, in more minute detail and in a less costly and less dangerous way than using only humans can.