Slashdot Mirror
Will Self-Driving Cars Destroy the Auto Insurance Industry? (siliconvalley.com)
An anonymous reader quotes an article from the Bay Area News Group:
Imagine your fully autonomous self-driving car totals a minivan. Who pays for the damages? "There wouldn't be any liability on you, because you're just like a passenger in a taxi," says Santa Clara University law professor Robert Peterson. Instead, the manufacturer of your car or its software would probably be on the hook... Virtually everything around car insurance is expected to change, from who owns the vehicles to who must carry insurance to who -- or what -- is held responsible for causing damage, injuries and death in an accident."
Ironically, if you're only driving a semi-autonomous car, "you could end up in court fighting to prove the car did wrong, not you," according to the article. Will human drivers be considered a liability -- by insurers, and even by car owners? The article notes that Google is already testing a car with no user-controlled brake pedal or steering wheel. Of course, one consumer analyst warns the newspaper that "hackers will remain a risk, necessitating insurance coverage for hostile takeover of automated systems..."
Are almost always answerable with "no."
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BMO
My house doesn't drive at all, but I still need insurance, because things can still happen to it.
Anything that is expensive, that you can't afford to replace should something happen to it, will need to be insured. This notion that self-driving cars will destroy the insurance industry is just plain silly.