The AV Liability Question and What Adaptive Insurance Solves for Fleet Operators

Zagreb has opened the gates to driverless taxi operations, following on from Waymo opening their robotaxi service to the public in Las Vegas. More developments and news are coming each month, across both sides of the Atlantic. Raising the question of how this rapidly evolving sector should be regulated and how the liability should be assigned, to encourage adoption and safety as it scales. 

Mckinsey predicts that robotaxis is expected to be the first major commercial application, rolling it out widely around 2030, mainly led by the US and China. Soon enough roads are going to be mixed with people handling the driving and with self-driving cars. 

Here’s our AV liability insurance guide, so you can have a better picture of what you can do with adaptive insurance solutions that can benefit the adoption and success of your AV fleets. 

How Liability Insurance Is Adapting to AVs

Future technologies need a forward looking insurance program. Sadly, insurance is not historically the most agile or forward thinking sector.  The rise of AV in cities like Zagreb and Las Vegas poses a headache for underwriters. First the shock of shared ownership models shook the foundation of their pricing models, now the total removal of humans from the equation again forces them to rethink risk modelling. 

Many people could soon start to rely on autonomous services for their daily needs. With the broader adoption, there’s potential of reduced traffic, improved accessibility, and making urban mobility more sustainable. The entire time the question grows bigger – who is at fault when things go wrong? And how do you design coverage around an AV to begin with.

Let’s consider how the different levels of autonomous maturity in vehicles concretely change the liability picture. Categorised into levels 0 to 5. Most vehicles right now operate from 0 to level 2. From level 3 onward the vehicle is not needed to be supervised. When a level 3-5 car is in a crash, since there’s no driver, the liability changes. It can get even a bit complicated to follow. The system for these levels doesn’t require the driver to be constantly in the loop. So the fault is no longer on the driver, it shifts to the manufacturer or software provider. 

Insurers are slowly adapting to the shift. Some policies distinguish if the vehicle was under human control or operating in autonomous mode, when the incident happened. Some policies don’t do this.

There’s also a different approach to vehicles operating in ride-hailing or logistic industries. This includes multiple stakeholders, including fleet operators, software vendors, and mobility service providers. Who may share the responsibility depending on how the vehicle is used. 

As AV systems are getting more complicated, the claims process needs to catch up with it. The process will require new capabilities to interpret operational data and assign liability accurately. 

With the rising complication with the vehicles, there’s a rising problem with data access. It’s not a standard practice to require operational data as part of underwriting. As a result of that critical information is often limited or blocked all the way. It makes the claims handling process more complicated when there’s lack of information on what the vehicle saw, decided or did. 

Taken together, all this means changing how insurers think about modern mobility infrastructure. Then backing the new logic with a set of insurance solutions that adapt coverage correctly. 

Offering an Insurance Solution for Autonomous Vehicles

Technology embedded into operational systems produces large behavioural and technical data. Sensor performance metrics, route optimisation patterns, weather condition responses, passenger interaction data, incident avoidance statistics.

Cachet is built to ingest, digest and understand all sorts of data around mobility operations. Our technology doesn’t just offer a platform to source and distribute insurance better, we offer an approach to understanding patterns behind incidents, transforming reactive claims into proactive safety improvements by working with the data AVs provide. 

We made it possible to deploy shuttles across borders without renegotiating insurance from scratch each time. This helps with the challenges that AV assets have, when they are operating in different countries that have wildly different regulatory requirements, like Japan, Estonia and the US. We help to navigate this. 

One unified dashboard for managing global autonomous fleets. Including operational data, safety metrics, and deployment performance across all territories. A single dashboard for monitoring fleet health, managing policies, tracking incidents, and optimising routes across continents. So you can maintain insurability while scaling rapidly.

Using Cachet’s technology it helps you to prove to regulators and partners that the autonomous shuttles are properly insured and professionally managed. Providing credibility which is needed to secure new deployments across increasingly diverse markets. 

Additionally, you can monitor insights needed about fleet performance, identify optimisation opportunities, enhance passenger safety, and demonstrate reliability to stakeholders.

It gives you more freedom to focus on your mission, by leaving behind rising premiums and restrictive coverage. 

FAQs

What is Cachet? 

Cachet is the adaptive insurance infrastructure supporting the modern platform economy. It re-designs coverage into a living system, adapted around you, supported by the tools to prevent loss long-term. Insurance is meant to work for the platforms and people it protects. It sits between digital platforms and the insurance market, providing the technology layer that makes real-time, adaptive insurance possible at scale. 

Are autonomous fleets insurable?

Yes. The idea that AVs are too risky to insure, doesn’t hold up anymore. Self-driving fleets offer behavioural and technical data, like sensor performance, route patterns, incident-avoidance, giving insurers the evidence needed to price and cover risk accurately. 

Who is liable when a self-driving vehicle crashes?

It depends on the automation level. Below level 3, the driver holds full responsibility. From level 3 onward, vehicles are considered fully autonomous, meaning liability shifts toward the manufacturer, software provider, or fleet operator. Additionally, liability depends on the policy you have. 

How does insurance work for AV fleets operating in multiple countries?

Cross-border AV insurance can become complicated and inconsistent with all the regulatory requirements required between different markets. Cachet’s adaptive insurance solutions solves that by allowing fleets to deploy across borders without renegotiating coverage from scratch in each country.