Autonomous cars are on their way, and insurance companies aren’t ready

Our future is automated self-driving cars, we’re told. Much of the technology is far beyond infancy, honed near perfection and already used in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) like lane departure warning and automatic emergency braking. In Ontario and some American states, they can even be driven among us. While frontrunners like Tesla duke it out with the not-far-behind legacy manufacturers (and Mercedes just one-upped the upstart in Germany), one thing is clearly emerging: having the vehicles is only one piece of the puzzle…

In other words, the insurance industry is moving at glacial speed in an industry that is strapped to a rocket. “In a worst-case scenario, Level 4 AV technology might be ready before Level 3 insurance regulation amendments are ready,” says Canadian Underwriter.