Automotive insurance premiums could fall by as much as 40 percent if the market fully adopts autonomous vehicles by 2050, according to a new report by a global reinsurance broker.
The forecast hinges on the expectation that the incidents of collisions will dramatically recede as accident-prone humans are replaced at the controls by robots more equipped to process massive quantities of data and adapt instantly to dynamic road conditions.
Automakers and third-party technology stakeholders are banking on a future of ubiquitous adoption of autonomous vehicles. The intervening period, though, holds some possible risks as manufacturers and the driverless rides learn to cope with unpredictable human drivers. Even still, the insurance report estimated that premiums would plummet 20 percent from last year’s rates by the year 2035, some fifteen years before they expect complete adoption of autonomous vehicles.
It’s still a great many years until autonomous vehicles supplant conventional human-operated vehicles, but already some commercial fleets have been deployed in the United States and in Singapore. Here, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Uber has assembled the largest commercial slate of driverless taxi cabs. (Read more on the public policy implications for Uber’s driverless experiment in Recode from Eric Tanenblatt, a co-leader in Dentons public policy practice.)
We’ll be using this space to spotlight the regulatory and legal developments of autonomous vehicles as new and expanded fleets hit global roadways. Subscribe to ensure you stay up to speed on driverless cars.
