Insurers Need to Define Point-of-Liability on Semi-Autonomous Cars

Some thoughts on autonomous tech by the Editor;

According to the local Yonhap News Agency the South Korean Transport Ministry is going to ease regulation on semi-autonomous cars next year, plus make some moves towards defining driver liability for insurers, or perhaps defining the extent of manufacturer liability if things go wrong.

Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Won Hee-ryong said the government will “dramatically” ease regulations involving autonomous cars during his visit to CES 2023 in Las Vegas last week. South Korea is currently ranked number 7 in the KPMG Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index, which is an indicator of how serious the nation is about self driving, or at least guided vehicles, like buses and taxis. All well and good.

But the question of when a driver, or the car, is responsible for what happens is still a grey area. In a taxi or bus it is easy to define, as the passenger is exactly that, and has no driving input. But in private or rideshare vehicles the roadmap towards an autonomous future is still a bit fuzzy roudn the edges. IE thinks that insurers cannot wait for government lawmakers and manufacturers to define the exact T&Cs of any policy. The point at which the driver hands over control must be defined within the policy wording – with total clarity.

One example of potential claims and legal arguments arising from unclear liability was in the UK news recently as a BMW owner claimed his car accelerated rapidly to 110mph by itself, when the cruise control malfunctioned. In response BMW stated that the driver had to take responsibility for effectively managing the speed of the car, in all circumstances. But if a manufacturer builds in technology which enables the car to accelerate to what IT thinks is the local speed limit, based on wrong data, then is the driver 100% responsible?

This case did not involve any accident, but let’s assume it did. A case could be made that the manufacturer, its software suppliers and their insurers all had partial liability since they made unreasonable assumptions about the cruise control accurately noting all local speed limits. Bear in mind speed limits are varied by councils upon a whim, or by roadworks, which may not show up in mapping apps.

In any case, the UK speed limit is not 100mph and never has been. So the tech malfunctioned it seems. This is exactly the same thorny principle surrounding autonomous cars; insurers must define in exact terms who is making the decisions which lead to the accident – car technology or the driver, or both? Plus, in the event of the tech malfunctioning based on wrong data, is the supplier of that data liable?

IE will be interested to read what the government of South Korea comes up in terms of semi-autonomous car regulation next year. It will need to be bold, workable and crystal clear. The worst case scenario is that the insurance industry plays a game of pass the parcel with lawmakers on this complex “chain-of-data” issue. There has to be an industry wide standard on the issue of handover, and soon.