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Insurance Companies Looking For Fallback Plans To Survive Driverless Cars (csmonitor.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Driverless cars could mean a huge downsizing of the auto insurance industry, as the frequency of accidents declines and liability shifts from the driver to the vehicle's software or automaker. This is compounded by the rise of ride-sharing services. Once summoning a vehicle to take you somewhere isn't limited by the number of people available to drive them (and are correspondingly cheaper), car ownership is likely to decline. Many major automakers and tech companies are throwing billions of research dollars into making this happen, and insurance companies are trying to figure out how to survive. For example, a recent patent application shows State Farm is betting on collecting massive amounts of data about you. While they'll no doubt use it to set your insurance rates, they also plan to "send you advice, alerts, coupons or discounts on insurance or other goods and services." Traveler's Insurance is thinking along somewhat similar lines. They want to create "a device that offers specific suggestions for managing errands and other travel. Customers would be able to see a map of 'risk zone' data for places they want to go, such as stores, restaurants and roads. They could then plan the day 'with an eye toward how risky such endeavors may be,' according to the patent application."
Exactly. Many states simply let you sue everyone remotely involved. I got hit by a drunk driver in a no-fault state. That dude sued the owner of the vehicle, the owner's insurance, their own insurance, me, and my insurance. After just 4 short years of litigating, they got a $1500 settlement out of my insurance company because I "didn't do enough to get out of their way" when they lost control of their vehicle and spun into me.
There's a "pain clinic" on every corner for a reason, just like there are back to back personal injury attorney commercials on tv every 5 minutes.
...Customers would be able to see a map of 'risk zone' data for places they want to go...
I wonder how much the insurance companies will charge business to assure their location does not show up in a "risk zone"?
.
"Pay us $1,000 insurance per month and we'll ensure your address doesn't appear in a risk zone...."
That could be quite the revenue source.
Insurance, by design, is a sham and a scam.
Even looking at the most basic premises - you (collectively, over time) pay X dollars, the insurance company pays out Y dollars. If Y > X then the insurance company goes bankrupt.
So by design, premiums MUST exceed payouts. On average it will always be cheaper to pay for things yourself, however people are NOT any good at saving $50K of oh-sh*t money in case they total someone's benz. Much easier for them to pay a $4K premium over 20 years.
In reality, the only thing insurance protects you from that you couldn't do on your own are the extreme situations. You total someone's ferrari and kill three people. Granted, without insurance you just declare bankruptcy.
I won't miss our insurance overlords...but I'm sure they'll pass bills requiring similarly priced insurance on driverless cars or something...by 'expanding' coverage or some 'for the people/children/etc.' reason.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
The idea that "self driving cars" will
A. occur anytime soon or
B. drive down car ownership,
is a pipe dream.
Billions have been poured into flight control systems and they all still require someone to sit behind the yoke and monitor them. While they do have an extra dimension, they also don't have to deal with as many variables, crappy roads, detours, crappy drivers to avoid, nonsensical roads, etc.
Before driverless cars are ubiquitous, nothing less than a complete overhaul of the roads to simplify routes, clearly mark boundaries, simplify interchanges, and reduce to a minimum possible conflicts, will be necessary. Billions and billions of infrastructure overhaul.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.