On the most recent update today there was a message onscreen to bind in order to have fly away coverage.
What is binding and is there a tradeoff in performance or function if I bind.?

no tradeoffs.  do it if you have care refresh!

There are, I think, a couple of niggles.
1) I believe that ALL the bindings MUST be in place for the flyaway insurance to be valid, I think the flyaway insurance's FAQ make it clear that if, perhaps, the controller is not bound to the DJI account, or whatever, then there insurance is invalid. Check this by reading carefully the small print, T&C and FAQ.....
So, if you swap controllers, you may need to sever all the bindings with controller "A" and make new bindings with controller "B". I believe that that is not difficult.

2) If you at some point decide to sell the drone then you must sever all the bindings otherwise the buyer may run into problems, do a google for "dji bound to other account".

Personally I think the binding sounds like a good idea if for no other reason than it may, note MAY, prevent a thief from using a stolen drone, ditto the finder of a lost drone. But, as I have no intention of getting care refresh or fly away insurance for my Mini 2, I can not really check the whole process out nor the consequences of it and I am relying on my understanding of 'hearsay'. But it does seem to have stopped some people who have bought "returns" from eShops from flying their new drone because something was "bound to another account".
In fact, if it does stop thieves etc., profiting from their ill gotten gains I think it is a pity that DJI do not open the anti-ill-gotten-gains-protection up to everyone irrespective of whether or not they have flyaway insurance.
Such protection has often been requested on this forum.People who want Flyaway insurance could still then buy it.


I can and did bind my Mini 2 to my DJI account but that did not seem to offer any protection. I was able to fly the drone with another controller and with either controller using a brand new DJI account that had absolutely no known connecting to the account to which the drone was bound i.e. different email address and I might have even completely removed the app from the phone i.e. 'deleted' the app via Android and then deleted via a computer the remaining dji.go.v5 (or something like that) folder/s and then reinstalled the FLY app. Though, using account '2', I did see that the drone was bound to another account.
So I severed the binding of the drone.

This makes me think the crucial bit is provided by the binding of the controller to either or both (if both is possible) the drone and or the DJI account and I didn't have that option available.
It also makes me wonder what is the situation when the Flyaway insures lapses?