The world of mobility is undergoing one of its biggest transformations in a century. As vehicles become autonomous, connected, and electric, traditional ideas about driving, and about risk, are being redefined. For insurers, this shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity: how do you price a risk when the “driver” is no longer human?
At the recent SAAM Day in Zurich, experts from Apollo ibott 1971 and Simulytic explored how the insurance industry can adapt to this new era. Their insights show how data, simulation, and collaboration are key to building trust and accelerating the safe rollout of autonomous vehicles (AVs).
From Human Drivers to Algorithmic Decisions
For decades, insurance models have relied on human behaviour. Premiums were determined by age, experience, location, and driving history, a simple equation that assumed human error was at the heart of most accidents.
With autonomous vehicles, that logic collapses. There is no driver’s record, no reaction time, no distraction. Instead, decisions are made by complex systems of sensors, software, and artificial intelligence. Responsibility, and risk, shift from the individual to the technology itself, as well as to the ecosystem that supports it: manufacturers, operators, data providers, and infrastructure managers.
This evolution forces insurers to rethink their core business. It’s no longer about predicting how humans behave, but about understanding how algorithms perform under specific conditions.
Why Traditional Insurance Models Fall Short
According to Chris Moore, Head of Apollo ibott 1971, traditional insurance frameworks cannot easily handle autonomous mobility. The company, which has been insuring AV risks for a decade, identifies four fundamental questions shaping the future of insurance:
- How is insurance distributed?
- How is risk assessed?
- Which coverage applies?
- Who is actually insured?
Each of these requires a new approach: one that is data-driven, flexible, and collaborative.
Rethinking Risk Assessment
The first challenge lies in measuring risk itself. Without a human driver, insurers need new indicators of performance and safety. This is where the concept of the Operational Design Domain (ODD) becomes essential.
An ODD defines where and how an autonomous vehicle can operate safely, including factors like geography, road type, traffic density, weather, and time of day. In this sense, risk is no longer universal; it is contextual. The same vehicle might be low-risk in a controlled industrial park but high-risk in a dense urban environment.
To address this, Simulytic has developed an innovative model called the AV Deployment Risk Score (AVDRS). It uses digital twins and AI to simulate thousands of driving scenarios in a virtual version of the real world. This allows insurers to evaluate how an autonomous system behaves within its specific ODD, before it ever hits the road.
“Pricing AV risk is impossible without data,” explained Andy Gill, COO and co-founder of Simulytic. “Simulation helps us generate synthetic driving histories and identify potential risks, giving insurers the confidence to set fair and transparent premiums.”
New Insurance Pathways Emerging
Apollo ibott suggests several possible pathways for how the insurance market could evolve in the AV era.
1. Risk assessment evolution
Insurers may start by adapting existing models, adding risk factors to bridge from human-driven vehicles to autonomous ones, before moving toward entirely new frameworks built on AV-specific data.
2. Coverage transformation
Rather than keeping separate policies for general liability, auto, cyber, and product risks, insurers might introduce a single, unified Autonomous Vehicle Liability Policy covering all aspects of AV operations.
3. Insured parties
Instead of each company in the AV ecosystem buying its own insurance, a comprehensive AV Wrap Policy could cover all stakeholders, manufacturers, software developers, fleet operators, and service providers, under one umbrella.
4. Distribution models
Finally, the way insurance is sold could change. In the future, AV software providers might embed insurance directly into their platforms, so coverage becomes a built-in feature of autonomous mobility.
These shifts point to a future where insurance is not just a financial product, but a service integrated into the mobility ecosystem itself.
Data and Simulation at the Heart of Change
Simulation tools like Simulytic’s AVDRS are more than just technical innovations, they represent a new way of managing trust. By creating hyper-local, evidence-based risk assessments, they allow insurers to move from reactive pricing (based on past claims) to predictive and preventive models.
Using synthetic telematics data generated from digital twins, insurers can test how reference AVs react to specific road conditions, weather, or traffic scenarios. This provides a consistent and transparent basis for underwriting, one that does not depend on intrusive access to proprietary vehicle software.
The result is a win-win situation: insurers can price risk accurately, and manufacturers can prove the safety of their systems without revealing trade secrets.
Real-World Impacts
These innovations are already making a difference. By aligning technology developers and insurers around shared data frameworks, the industry is creating the conditions for scalable, insurable AV deployments.
Accurate risk scoring helps insurers offer fairer premiums. It also encourages manufacturers to improve their systems based on measurable safety indicators. Over time, this cycle of data, feedback, and confidence will be essential to making autonomy mainstream.
From Risk to Opportunity
Insurance has always been a tool for managing uncertainty. In the age of autonomy, it can become a catalyst for progress. The next generation of insurance products may be dynamic, usage-based, and embedded, reflecting real-time conditions rather than static assumptions.
This transformation will not happen overnight. It requires cooperation between insurers, technology providers, policymakers, and associations like SAAM, which bring these stakeholders together to share knowledge and shape a common framework.
Autonomous vehicles are teaching us that safety, trust, and innovation go hand in hand. The insurance industry has a unique role to play, not just in managing risk, but in enabling the future of mobility.
Christopher Moore
Head of ibott, Apollo 1971
Andy Gill
Co-Funder and COO, Simulytic
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The Swiss Association for Autonomous Mobility (SAAM) connects experts from across the ecosystem (insurers, developers, cities, and researchers) to exchange insights and build concrete solutions for the safe integration of autonomous technologies.
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