Automated cars and trucks are a reality today. These vehicles are not only driving themselves, they’re presenting insurance organizations significant risk identification and management challenges and prompting changes to partner relationships and transportation operations and emerging fleet risk best practices. In the
Digital Insurance: You research disruptive trends and new technologies and how they impact risk. Why are you interested in autonomous vehicles? What makes this particular trend so compelling?
Joshi: Typically, major/macro trends dictate the core strategic direction of an organization, but disruption seldom comes from these macro trends and often comes via intersection of macro trends. The autonomous vehicle trend sits on the intersection of many macro trends: electric, machine vision, autonomy and sharing economy. This macro trend is changing the future of mobility and changing the overall risk landscape. As an insurance company, we are well-positioned to understand the risk and opportunities that autonomous vehicle technology presents. Additionally, Liberty Mutual is excited about embracing and enabling the opportunity for autonomous vehicles technology for our customers’ benefit.
DI: How are autonomous cars and trucks changing the risk picture as we know it?
Joshi: Today, more than 90 percent of the accidents on the road are caused by human error leading to loss of around 40,000 lives in the U.S. and over a million lives around the world. The long-term potential for autonomous cars to improve vehicle safety is tremendous, but it is also many years away. These vehicles certainly have an opportunity to create a safer world, yet they are no different in that they pose their own risks (tech, cyber etc.). At Liberty Mutual, we want to help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow. So, we are here to help, understand, learn and educate the industry and consumers on the risks and provide protection for the unexpected.
DI: What do insurers need to know to identify and manage the risks of autonomous vehicles?
Joshi: Insurers need to stay very close to the autonomous wave and understand technology and how it interfaces with the real world. While we are excited about what autonomous vehicles would bring to our lives, we want to make sure, we – insurers, tech companies, OEMs, government, consumers – collectively understand the risks and help improve the standards to make them safer for all of us.
DI: How will the models for emerging fleet risk best practices have to change?
Joshi: Autonomous vehicles have brought us into a very data active ecosystem. With tons of telematics and other data that are coming from these cars, there is a great opportunity for the risk industry to build more active risk interfaces to help the cars navigate safely and successfully. Risk models and products for emerging fleets will evolve and adapt to changing consumer needs, data availability and technological advancements. Achieving this new state of real-time monitoring and assessment will require greater collaboration.
DI: Are there other trends you’ll cover that also impact risk dramatically? What makes them so disruptive?
Joshi: Global weather changes, a new computation landscape, an increasingly connected economy and security are some tangential opportunities that are evolving the global risk landscape and increasing the global insurance protection gap. The risk industry needs to ramp up its game in dealing with s-curve disruption that we are seeing across the industry. While it’s a great time for insurers to study and understand the changing risk profiles, it is also a super critical time since too much is at stake for all of us. We are here to understand and help as we believe that progress happens when people feel secure.
Dig | In will be held in Austin, Texas from May 28-31. For more information or to register,
