*By Madison Alworth*
Verifly, a start-up that provides insurance for flying drones, said it will now also cover people. It will begin offering on-demand, short-term general liability insurance for contract workers and freelancers.
The company's app, originally designed for the gig economy of DJs, photographers, handymen, and dog walkers, gave Verifly a leg up when it looked to expand into other types of insurance, said co-founder and CEO Jay Bregman.
"This platform that we built was really a per-flight, drone insurance, and it was how we cut our teeth in building this episodic insurance," he said Wednesday in an interview with Cheddar. The contractors who were using their drone insurance were the ones who asked for coverage for their other freelance jobs. "They came to us and said, 'it's great that we have this system for the 5 percent of our work that deals with drones, but we'd like to do this for the 95 percent of our work that's photography, or construction, etc.' So we just listened."
There are 57 million Americans who work as independent contractors, often on short term jobs. In the least 20 years, the number of gig economy workers has increased by about [20 percent more](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/13/gig-economy-is-growing-heres-how-much.html) than payroll employees.
"Insurance is only sold by the year. So we stepped in to solve that problem," said Bregman.
Verifly users can purchase insurance for a specific gig and by the hour. The rates start as low as $5 an hour, and they're based on a variety of factors including the type of work, the length of the project, and where the job is located. Verifly insurance is available in 11 states, and the company has plans to be available nationwide by the end of this year or early next year. Its general liability policies are underwritten by Markel Insurance Company and the drone policies are underwritten by Global Aerospace, Inc.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/getting-insurance-for-your-gig).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
