The additional safety devices that are in place to reduce accident do help, but the idea of no accidents involving vehicles will never happen. The ease of getting a driver license, and humans driving habits Insurance companies will always have auto claims. Technology has helped, but relying solely on the new technology to prevent accidents is asking for to much. A driverless vehicle is a nice concept, but our current road conditions to create such an atmosphere states would have to spend Billions of dollars to make our roadways at least half way decent.
If Term Life companies are willing to write policies for $20 per month, why wouldn’t auto carriers be willing to do it? If their loss ratios are going to be that low, they’d be in good shape. Low overhead, high profit. I’m not sure agencies would continue to write auto if the reward was that low, however. GEICO would write 99% of all auto policies.
I would say that the additional features being added to newer cars like FaceBook, Twitter, etc will cause accidents. Who needs to FB and Tweet while they drive? Also, I don’t see texting going away anytime soon and we know that people love to text and drive. Interesting article but I don’t see it happening.
No. Read – the google car has a manual override. So you will need $5M CPL limits for gross negligence in your errant decision to override at an inappropriate time.
Not to mention all the old farts who will continue to insist on driving their 1963 Coverette (or whichever collectible)!
I do agree that there will always be accidents of some kind: A tree can still fall on a car that drives itself, or it can be vandalized, etc etc. However, I don’t think it is crazy to say that within the next 2 decades, the auto claim industry will be drastically different due to robotic cars and the overall increase in safety/prevention features integrated into them. That being said, there will always be a market for insurance. It is not going anywhere.
This has been going on for years. The last statistic I saw, there were 40% fewer motor vehicle accidents in 2008 than in the 80’s.
It isn’t just the tech stuff in the article. Even low-tech solutions like rumble bars on the side of the road are lowering frequency. Severity on the other hand has increased due to the cost of the technology in vehicles and inflation, in medical costs in particular.
I agree this will help lower frequency of auto accidents but as many above have said too many other variables that can’t be accounted for: trees falling, vandalism, motorcycles, computer glitches, large satellite or grid failure, etc. All these other factors will continue to have an impact on auto accidents but I do see a trending down of frequency of claims as the norm.
I would expect that at least some of the cost savings generated by reduced claims frequency, if there are any, would be offset by the increased cost of fixing the safety devices/new technology themselves, should they be damaged.
Commercial aviaton has hardly any accidents. It has become the safest form of transportation known to man. Nobody has considered there is no or little need for insurance covering commercial aviation. As long as there are human beings and some of them are lawyers we will always need insurance.
If you read many of the predictions of what’s going to happen to the industry in the future, they’re most often made by people who really don’t understand the industry but think they do. Here are some other predictions from the past:
“That rainbow song’s no good. Take it out.” — MGM memo after the screening of the Wizard of Oz
“Radio has no future…x-rays are clearly a hoax…the aeroplane is scientifically impossible.” — Royal Society president Lord Kelvin, 1899
“Forget it. No Civil War picture ever made a nickel.” — MGM executive, advising against investing in Gone With the Wind
“The atom bomb will never go off…and I speak as an expert in explosives.” — U.S. Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project, 1945
“The Beatles? They’re on the wane.” — Duke of Edinburgh, 1965
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
“Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine.” — Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” — Charles Duell, U.S. patent office director, 1899
“You’d better learn secretarial skills or else get married.” — modelling agency rejecting Marilyn Monroe in 1944
“You ought to go back to driving a truck.” — concert manager firing Elvis Presley in 1954
“Very interesting, Whittle, my boy, but it will never work.” — professor of aeronautical engineering at Cambridge, after being show Frank Whittle’s plan for the jet engine
“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” — Pierre Pachet, professor of physiology at Toulouse, 1872
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urging for investment in the radio in the 1920s
“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” — Kenneth H. Olson, president of DEC, Convention of the World Future Society, 1977
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876
“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” — A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” — H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” — Gary Cooper, on his decision to not take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind”
“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” — Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.'” — Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer
“Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” — 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work
“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” — Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus
“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” — Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” — Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre
“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon”. — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873
“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.” — Orville Wright
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
“But what … is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
“The telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.” — Alexander Graham Bell.
“Can’t dance. Can’t act. Can sing a little.” — Notes from Fred Astaire’s screen test.
“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” — Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M “Post-It” Pads
“This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.” — Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.
“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.” — Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube.
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” — Dr. W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute, as quoted in the New York Times on April 14, 1954.
“For the majority of People, smoking has a beneficial effect.” — Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles surgeon, quoted in “Newsweek”, Nov. 8th 1963.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981.
“The Transistor is a passing fad.” — Dr. William J. Barclay, EE Department NCSU, 1969.
“Apple… What a Dumb Name for a computer company.” — Glen A. Williamson, deciding between a Sol-20 computer kit & an Apple II, 1979.
The additional safety devices that are in place to reduce accident do help, but the idea of no accidents involving vehicles will never happen. The ease of getting a driver license, and humans driving habits Insurance companies will always have auto claims. Technology has helped, but relying solely on the new technology to prevent accidents is asking for to much. A driverless vehicle is a nice concept, but our current road conditions to create such an atmosphere states would have to spend Billions of dollars to make our roadways at least half way decent.
If Term Life companies are willing to write policies for $20 per month, why wouldn’t auto carriers be willing to do it? If their loss ratios are going to be that low, they’d be in good shape. Low overhead, high profit. I’m not sure agencies would continue to write auto if the reward was that low, however. GEICO would write 99% of all auto policies.
I would say that the additional features being added to newer cars like FaceBook, Twitter, etc will cause accidents. Who needs to FB and Tweet while they drive? Also, I don’t see texting going away anytime soon and we know that people love to text and drive. Interesting article but I don’t see it happening.
Sure, just like nuclear power resulted in electrical energy that’s too cheap to meter.
The caveman will have to eat the gecko & cause mayhem for the good neighbors at the university.
No. Read – the google car has a manual override. So you will need $5M CPL limits for gross negligence in your errant decision to override at an inappropriate time.
Not to mention all the old farts who will continue to insist on driving their 1963 Coverette (or whichever collectible)!
I do agree that there will always be accidents of some kind: A tree can still fall on a car that drives itself, or it can be vandalized, etc etc. However, I don’t think it is crazy to say that within the next 2 decades, the auto claim industry will be drastically different due to robotic cars and the overall increase in safety/prevention features integrated into them. That being said, there will always be a market for insurance. It is not going anywhere.
This has been going on for years. The last statistic I saw, there were 40% fewer motor vehicle accidents in 2008 than in the 80’s.
It isn’t just the tech stuff in the article. Even low-tech solutions like rumble bars on the side of the road are lowering frequency. Severity on the other hand has increased due to the cost of the technology in vehicles and inflation, in medical costs in particular.
I agree this will help lower frequency of auto accidents but as many above have said too many other variables that can’t be accounted for: trees falling, vandalism, motorcycles, computer glitches, large satellite or grid failure, etc. All these other factors will continue to have an impact on auto accidents but I do see a trending down of frequency of claims as the norm.
I would expect that at least some of the cost savings generated by reduced claims frequency, if there are any, would be offset by the increased cost of fixing the safety devices/new technology themselves, should they be damaged.
Ah but yes, there are still Attorney’s and they trump all the safety devices,
Commercial aviaton has hardly any accidents. It has become the safest form of transportation known to man. Nobody has considered there is no or little need for insurance covering commercial aviation. As long as there are human beings and some of them are lawyers we will always need insurance.
It would seem that walking is safe… Yet one slip and fall can cost an insurance company $1MM once the lawyers get involved.
Eric
If you read many of the predictions of what’s going to happen to the industry in the future, they’re most often made by people who really don’t understand the industry but think they do. Here are some other predictions from the past:
“That rainbow song’s no good. Take it out.” — MGM memo after the screening of the Wizard of Oz
“Radio has no future…x-rays are clearly a hoax…the aeroplane is scientifically impossible.” — Royal Society president Lord Kelvin, 1899
“Forget it. No Civil War picture ever made a nickel.” — MGM executive, advising against investing in Gone With the Wind
“The atom bomb will never go off…and I speak as an expert in explosives.” — U.S. Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project, 1945
“The Beatles? They’re on the wane.” — Duke of Edinburgh, 1965
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
“Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine.” — Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” — Charles Duell, U.S. patent office director, 1899
“You’d better learn secretarial skills or else get married.” — modelling agency rejecting Marilyn Monroe in 1944
“You ought to go back to driving a truck.” — concert manager firing Elvis Presley in 1954
“Very interesting, Whittle, my boy, but it will never work.” — professor of aeronautical engineering at Cambridge, after being show Frank Whittle’s plan for the jet engine
“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” — Pierre Pachet, professor of physiology at Toulouse, 1872
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urging for investment in the radio in the 1920s
“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” — Kenneth H. Olson, president of DEC, Convention of the World Future Society, 1977
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876
“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” — A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” — H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” — Gary Cooper, on his decision to not take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind”
“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” — Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.'” — Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer
“Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” — 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work
“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” — Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus
“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” — Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” — Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre
“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon”. — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873
“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.” — Orville Wright
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
“But what … is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
“The telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent.” — Alexander Graham Bell.
“Can’t dance. Can’t act. Can sing a little.” — Notes from Fred Astaire’s screen test.
“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” — Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M “Post-It” Pads
“This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.” — Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.
“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.” — Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube.
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” — Dr. W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute, as quoted in the New York Times on April 14, 1954.
“For the majority of People, smoking has a beneficial effect.” — Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles surgeon, quoted in “Newsweek”, Nov. 8th 1963.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981.
“The Transistor is a passing fad.” — Dr. William J. Barclay, EE Department NCSU, 1969.
“Apple… What a Dumb Name for a computer company.” — Glen A. Williamson, deciding between a Sol-20 computer kit & an Apple II, 1979.