Insurance representatives told California lawmakers Wednesday that access to data generated by autonomous vehicles will be key to their industry's ability to write policies and assess liability in the emerging market. Ryan Gammelgard, counsel for State Farm Insurance Company Inc., told the Senate Insurance Committee that underwriters are not seeking information "on every aspect of [a] vehicle." But they do want data that shows driverless-car technology "actually does what it advertises it's doing."

Demand for data

"Data access is essential to develop proper pricing and underwriting of vehicles, critical for liability determinations and from the general public's perspective, important in determining the safety and reliability of the technology," Gammelgard said.

Related: Fully leveraging data analytics in insurance

"In some situations there may have to be a determination of: Where does this vehicle go?" he added. "What is it allowed to do? There are going to be some challenges in terms of those issues and [asking]: Is there a way to still preserve those privacy rights while at the same time making sure that we can verify that the technology actually does what it advertises it's doing?"