I post a lot about how the insurance industry is changing due to technology. A major change, that could especially impact future, specific, inbound calling auto insurance customers due to technology, is the autonomous or self-driving car, which most experts think will be dominating the roads by 2030.

Much like I wrote in my last post, How Usage Based Insurance is Changing the Auto Industry, specifically through the use of driver tracking devices, thus making it possible for insurers to charge less due to cars becoming safer, the same will be said for driverless cars. The main question is by eliminating the driver how will insurers handle insurance and pricing; charge the manufacturer, the passage, the technology? Companies such as Farmers wrote a new auto policy for Tesloop a ride sharing program they partnered with that uses Tesla to transport customers between Southern California cities has had to slash the service's previous insurance costs by 25% by reducing its risk premium.

Tesla is presenting major challenges to the auto insurance industry through the robotic car situation by experimenting with the idea of selling insurance and maintenance with the sale of the automobile. Jon McNeill, Tesla's president of sales and services, said at a company meeting, "It {Tesla} takes into account not only the Autopilot safety features but also the maintenance cost of the car. It’s our vision in the future we could offer a single price for the car, maintenance, and insurance." With Tesla presenting insurance and maintenance with the price of the vehicle what place does the auto insurance industry have? Also, since in the United States auto insurance is state regulated, would this mean each state would have to figure out their own ways to deal with self-driving cars? Would this mean, states with larger populations would have different insurance than ones with less population? Decentralize.today writes, the safety of a self-driving cars rests primarily with the technology within the car. Rather than assessing drivers, as insurers have done throughout the past they will now have to assess the technology.

At this moment, the idea of how to insurer autonomous cars is still too new to determine anything. And with them still in the test stages we can only speculate about how and what impact these robotic automobiles will have on the industry. What are your thoughts about how this self-driving vehicles will impact your industry? Let us know in the comments.