If you are allowed to have just the pan (without it connected to anything), you could install a water detection type alarm in the pan that would alert you if anything went wrong. Also, sometimes for A/C units, they will install a float switch in the safety pan and causes the unit to kick off when it fills with water (the idea is that you will then check the unit to see what is going on and see the full pan). You might be able to do something similar? Not sure if that would be worth it, though.
With the drain line to outside, the only thing that I don't like is it makes a nice path for hot/humid air to come in during the summer and cold air in the winter. Also makes for a nice path for insects to come in. You could add a trap to take care of these issues, but the trap would dry out if you didn't add water from time-to-time (or install a trap primer).
Since it is in the laundry area, at least the pan could be inpected fairly often (whenever you run a load). Hopefully, a small leak would be noticed before it became a bigger leak. Even with the pan + 1" drain, you won't be saved if the leak is really big (like a rupture of the tank). Because of the location of the WH, I would be inclined to just cap the pan and install an alarm. That should cover you most of the time. If you were gone on vacation and were worried about it, you could turn off the water/gas while away. If the tank was somewhere where you didn't see it often (attic, crawlspace, closet, etc.), I would try to run the line outside or an indirect waste receptor.
Here, we have to run the pan with 3/4" minimum piping.
This isn't for AL, but should be fairly close (see Chapter 5):
https://www2.iccsafe.org/states/Virginia/Plumbing/Plumbing_Frameset.html