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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."
They plan on monetizing this data with or without driverless cars.
as a longitme customer of these insurance companies i have this to say...
DONT find a way to survive you useless fucking leeches. You serve no purpose whatsoever, you are useless middlemen who profit from the suffering of others & add nothing beneficial to society.
Rather than finding a way to survive, you should curl up in a ball and die.
Its the best thing for everyone involved.
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.
Are driverless cars really the big game changer for auto insurance?
I'm in Ontario, Canada and I just don't see how this is going to change things.
We already have 'no-fault' auto insurance, which basically means you buy car insurance to protect yourself and liability.
You don't go around suing the other drivers or anything. When you make a claim, you just deal with your own insurance company.
The rate you pay is still based on your risk.
So, we have driverless cars. You still buy insurance to protect yourself and liability.
Maybe some of the risk metrics change. Like cars with a better record of being driverless get lower rates? But that's no different than rating cars for safety today.
I suppose some countries might need to change how their auto-insurance works. Moving more towards no-fault insurance.
But it's not like the world doesn't have plenty of models to choose from that would better fit the driverless world.
They don't have to reinvent the wheel as far as I can tell.
...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.
The article is identifying an obvious problem (insurance industry upheaval from ride sharing and driver-less cars) but providing grossly incorrect insights and details about the problem. Car insurance will not go away because of ride sharing or driver-less cars. No one rational is claiming this. But each of these new realities brings a unique problem.
Ride sharing shifts the insurance to the owner of the ride sharing car, instead of each individual rider. The number of miles driven won't go down (significantly), but the number of people being marketed to will. This is probably a good thing for the large insurance companies as they move from B2C to B2B, but individual insurance salesmen will be drastically hurt.
Self driving cars also still need insurance; just not as much. And a large portion of the insurance burden will fall to manufacturers instead of just on drivers. Insurance companies will not be able to make the same kind of profit overall on large multinational car companies that they can on the public.
So the insurance companies will still be there, but its not unreasonable to think they could be half the size or smaller. Or at least their automotive division would be.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So, what, they want to be our nannies, and they think people will just let themselves be tracked to prop up their failing business model?
No, they think people will let themselves be tracked for BIG SAVINGS! and convenience. Based on what I have seen of people's behavior and ability to not think things through, I think it might work.
So much bullshit.
Oh yeah.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
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.
Insurance, by design, is a sham and a scam.
If you think that then you would be wrong. Oh sure, there are insurance scams out there. But that is not the same things as insurance being a scam. Insurance is about mitigation of risk. Reducing the financial consequences of rare or severe events. Insurance is a very useful tool but if you don't use it properly then like most tools it might do more harm than good. People who are financially sophisticated typically have quite a lot of insurance and for good reason.
So by design, premiums MUST exceed payouts.
Not actually true. Premiums + Investment profits must exceed payouts over the long term. There are two parts to every insurance business. The premium payments you send in and then on the back end the insurance company invests those premiums. People don't typically see the investment side of the business but it's very important. Lots of insurance companies actually sell insurance at an underwriting loss but make a profit by investing the money. This isn't ideal from the insurance company's perspective but due to a competitive market it is sometimes necessary. There are more than a few insurance companies that have taken underwriting losses for many years in a row.
All insurance companies will take losses periodically but so long as they have sufficient reserves this is expected and acceptable. For risks where they lack adequate reserves insurance companies can get re-insurance (basically insurance for the insurance) for those events.
In reality, the only thing insurance protects you from that you couldn't do on your own are the extreme situations.
Insurance is for extreme events but it also can be to mitigate damage for events that you can afford to deal with. For example I have dental insurance. I am perfectly capable of paying out of pocket for any dental procedure I am ever likely to have but my dental insurance helps me mitigate the cost so pay a little up front to come out ahead in the long run. It ensures that the insurance company works when negotiating rates with the dentist so I get better rates than I could negotiate on my own.
What a terrible thing to say. My family would never drink Bud Light.