Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are some pretty amazingtechnology, allowing the military to send combat aircraft intobattle without endagnering their pilots, giving law enforcementagencies the ability to survey areas from the air for longerperiods of time, and giving civilian enthusiasts the abilitycapture some pretty terrific video footage from the air. Insurershave put this particular application to use as a way to viewdamaged rooftops and assess damage without putting a claimsadjuster at risk of falling. And hobbyists have used drones withmounted GoPro cameras to capture some marvelous footage, such asflying right into the heart of an Independence Day fireworksdisplay.

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The thing is, not everybody is thrilled withdrones. In fact, most people are freaked out by them, according toa study conducted for the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. TheChubb survey noted that while Americans are curious about howdrones can and might be used, that curiosity is giving way toserious misgivings about new dangers private drones mightpresent. 

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"As drones continue to be developed and deployed, we expect thatan increasing number of our customers will face some of the risksof this emerging technology," said Christie Alderman, vicepresident of Chubb Personal Insurance. "Fortunately, if a dronewere to damage or cause other loss to your property, there may becoverage under the dwelling or contents portion of your homeownersinsurance policy."

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That's good news, since nearly three-fourths of the 1,000 peoplesurveyed for Chubb said they were concerned that drones coulddamage property if flown into a house. Some fifty-five percent ofpeople said they were concerned that drones could hurt people byhitting them and taking out an eye or cutting a finger.

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If either of those concerns seem far-fetched to you, they'renot. The video below shows what can happen when a drone suffers amalfunction and becomes impossible to steer correctly. In thiscase, what was supposed to be a short flight to examine a nearbyrooftop turned into an out-of-control crash through the window of anearby law office that resulted in one of its occupants sustainingan injury bad enough to require several stitches. The associatedcosts with that particular crash will not be cheap for thedrone's operator.  

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The biggest concern, however, was the use ofdrones as flying cameras, which is really how most civilians intendto use them. There is something very cool and very useful aboutbeing able to put a robust video camera high in the sky. But thatalso means creeps can look at people, places and things they shouldnot be looking at. The Chubb survey noted that 78% of peoplethought drones could turn America into a surveillance state, andthat drones might capture photos of family members (60%), or beused to hack into wireless networks (50%). More than a third ofpeople (34%) feared droned could be used to steal theirpossessions.

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The video below speaks to the Peeping Tom risk. Here, a pilotflew his drone over a beach in Oahu, Hawaii, and judging from thevideo, it looks like he was just trying to get some video of thesurfline. However, he overflew one man who was sunbathing in thenude, and when the drone overflew the guy a second time, the iratesunbather hurled both of his sandals at the drone, nearly knockingit out of the sky. As you'll see, the sunbather hectors the pilotover an invasion of privacy, only to learn that surprise! Nudesunbathing is illegal in Oahu.

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 Nearly fifth of respondents (21%) said they would beinterested in buying a drone (they do look like an awful lot of funto fly around), but 67% said that private citizens should not beallowed to operate a drone at all, not even if they had a permitfor one. Only a handful of respondents – less than 10%  -felt comfortable seeing a drone being piloted by a child. Interestingly, 64% said they did not want to see businessesusing drones, either. Amazon is already looking into how to use thetechnology to make small doorstep deliveries directly, and it'sonly a matter of time before somebody uses this tech to get a pizzato you in under 30 minutes without having to tip the driver. (I'msure the pilots would appreciate a little something for theirefforts, though.) 

 The original purpose for drones – military use – remained, byfar, the use most people felt comfortable with Some 86% ofrespondents supported military use of drones, even though armeddrones have a pretty nasty record of causing collateral damage(a.k.a. killing innocent people) when they take out a bad guy.Respondents also felt comfortable with law enforcement use ofdrones, although with the recent unrest in Ferguson, one canimagine that the public wouldn't be that comfortable with police drones. 

 The Chubb survey's respondents also supported the use ofdrones for the delivery of emergency medical aid and otherhumanitarian uses. Drones are already being put to those purposesalready, with small winged craft being used to providehigh-resolution mapping of Haiti in an effort to identify andmitigate flood risk, and to deliver much-needed medical aid toparts of the world that simply don't have the ground infrastructurein place to allow for fast, reliable delivery of essential goodsfrom the outside.  

When it is all said and done, theintroduction of cheap, mass produced drones is a big game-changerin the fields of defense, law enforcement, retail, medicine, riskmanagement, and even insurance. Like any emerging technology, wehaven't yet fully figured out if the positives ultimately outweighthe negatives. That is the exciting phase of seeing a newtechnology take hold. Drone technology could do for logistics andtransportation what mobile telephones have done forcommunications.

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But this is also the scary phase. We just don't know how oftendrones will be used recklessly or for illicit purposes, or what therange of hazards might be. But one thing remains clear: whateverpath we choose, it will be the insurability of drones, and thewillingness of insurers to use such technology, that determines alarge part of this technology's destiny.