Bloomberg Businessweek took on the insurance issues surrounding driverless cars this week, asking “Do Self-Driving Cars Spell Doom for Auto Insurers?”
Their answer? Maybe.
“Human error accounts for 90 percent of road accidents, according to the International Organization for Road Accident Prevention, and our collective failure rate helps the auto insurance industry rake in a cool $157 billion in premiums each year,” the story reads. “So if self-driving cars eliminate all those driver mistakes, the business of insuring vehicles will necessarily change as well.”
That said, there's nothing to indicate, yet, that the industry won't be able to adjust to deal with this new reality.
“In writing driverless insurance policies, underwriters will likely focus on the make and model of a car instead of a driver's accident history or how often he drives. There may also be the introduction of 'black boxes,' data recorders akin to those found in airplanes that can track car data and decipher what really happened seconds before a crash.”
Either way, this issue isn't going away anytime soon. Auto insurers are likely in for an interesting decade.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
