State Farm has become the very first company in the United States to receive a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for drone operations over people and beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). The waiver is valid until November 2022. Senior Vice President for P&C Claims, Robert Yi, said, “The waiver will provide our claims specialists with another way to efficiently help customers. We can use drones to assess on-the-ground damage and deploy resources.” State Farm has been working with Virginia Tech’s Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP) conducting case research for over two years. MAAP aided State Farm in navigating the approval process and collecting supporting data for these types of operations.

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