Because of the arrival of autonomous vehicles, a good number of prognosticators are loudly heralding the end of auto insurance and the insurers that rely on this income stream. While there is no doubt that the auto insurance will change over time because of autonomous vehicles, the doomsday folks paint a picture of an almost certain — and right-around-the-corner — cataclysmic change, with the general population cheering wildly about not having to pay for auto insurance anymore.
Disappointingly for those people, this is a highly unlikely scenario.
At the most fundamental level, autonomous vehicles are expensive. Until the bulk of the population can afford autonomous cars and trucks, we will be living in a world with a foot on each side of the driving paradigm. This means that, while the autonomous vehicle might not hit the car in front of it, the vehicle behind it may very well end up in its back seat. Uninsured and underinsured coverage, comprehensive coverage, coverage for property damage and liability coverage will be needed for a long, long time.
See also: Connected Vehicles Can Improve Claims
In the meantime, auto insurers will have the opportunity to work out the liability paths with the autonomous auto manufacturers. And auto insurers will have the time to adjust their product mixes and financials. Underwriters and claims personnel will adjust processes and practices. Believe me, I am not suggesting that change won’t happen. It will. And some of the changes will be painful from several perspectives. But with all the various factors potentially reining in the spread of autonomous vehicles — cost, regulators, consumer wariness — insurers will adjust. At least the insurers that believe in innovation and data and analytics will adjust — and flourish.
What people are not focusing on is the rapid change in the products and services that are coming from the convergence of emerging technologies — and this is happening right now. Take a quick perusal of the topics in SMA’s Next-Gen Innovation Community, and some examples come to light:
- To diagnose a rare genetic disorder, a physician combined an exomes analysis with a facial comparison using an app called Face2Gene, which was developed by the same programmers who taught Facebook to find your face in your friends’ photos.
- To reduce manufacturing times and production periods, Adidas will use 3D printing or additive manufacturing methods as the core technology of its factory that produces sneakers.
- The use of “cobots” — collaborative robots that perform tasks alongside humans — is rapidly gaining popularity, and it is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. robotics industry.
- The global semiconductor industry is pushing to develop new chip designs, materials and manufacturing processes. One reason is the widening use of the artificial-intelligence technique known as deep learning in products — both consumer and manufacturing products.
