SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the don't-tell-them-about-motorcycles dept.
Like record companies at the dawn of online music file sharing, Allstate, Geico, State Farm, and others are grappling with innovations that could put a huge dent in their revenue. As carmakers automate more aspects of driving, accidents will likely plunge and car owners will need less coverage. Premiums consumers pay could drop as much as 60 percent in 15 years as self-driving cars hit the roads, says Donald Light, head of the North America property and casualty practice for Celent, a research firm. His message for insurers: "You have to be prepared to see that part of your business shrink, probably considerably."
Auto insurance has long been a lucrative business. The industry collected about $195 billion in premiums last year from U.S. drivers. New customers are the source of so much profit that Geico alone spends more than $1 billion a year on ads to pitch its policies with a talking lizard and other characters. Yet even Warren Buffett, whose company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns Geico, is talking about the long-term risks to the business model. "If you could come up with anything involved in driving that cut accidents by 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent, that would be wonderful," he said at a conference in March. "But we would not be holding a party at our insurance company."
The loss of revenue for the insurance industry gives me a sad.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Friday July 31 2015, @06:07PM
A lot of it is surprisingly straightforward, the car keeps at least 2 seconds behind the next car as long as it can do so at a safe speed. The car needs to watch out for lane intrusions and slow or speed as appropriate. Which is a pretty limited number of reactions necessary to get along with other cars.
Obviously, the actual execution of it is difficult, but realistically, the things human drivers do that cause crashes are generally a lot more easily identified than one might imagine. The motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians are a much bigger problem though.