US insurers are not worried about autonomous driving ideas

US insurers are not worried about autonomous driving ideas

25. Juli 2020 0 Von Horst Buchwald

US insurers are not worried about autonomous driving ideas

 

Washington, July 25, 2020

 

According to Tesla, enormous amounts of information about accident histories and drivers are stored and evaluated, among other things. In the future, insurance companies will use this to construct products that never existed before. Another consequence could be new ideas for the design of cars or insights that help to avoid expensive repairs.

Five years ago, the effects of technology on car insurers were thought to be straightforward: self-driving cars would be coming soon, and they would be as safe, and people would need about as many car insurance policies as printed newspapers.

But now everything is different. Above all, the technology for cars and insurance comes much slower. This is welcomed by US insurance companies such as Allstate, Progressive and Geico from Berkshire Hathaway. They also expect slow and steady effects on their business.

Instead of self-driving cars, the auto industry is cautiously moving towards better safety equipment and information exchange. Research into autonomous and networked vehicles helps to achieve these goals better.

For the time being, some insurers are content to give their customers discounts if they allow in-car monitors. Then you can track how often they accelerate, avoid or suddenly stop – all behaviors that are linked to the accident rate.

Fully self-driving cars can be up to a decade away. Even if the technology advances earlier, fully or almost completely autonomous cars will not take up a larger market share before 2030, argues the consulting company Counterpoint Research.

In the meantime, drivers are seeing much more modest changes in their cars. Advances such as „lane departure warning“ and systems that automatically stop cars when they recognize pedestrians on their way can ultimately reduce accident rates and insurance claims, since lane changes caused approximately 13,000 deaths in 2015, according to the US transportation department. However, this technology was standard equipment of only about 6% of cars in the 2017 model year. The quality of the „pedestrian braking systems“ is very different. In 2018, the deaths of pedestrians in car accidents reached a 28-year high.