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easier identification of liability when a machine autonomy and speed is appropriate for a wide set of driving
malfunctioned. conditions.
Today's "smart" or autonomous machines have the Oxbotica, along with the UK government which is offering
capability to learn from themselves or even other machines. grant money to stimulate development of new autonomous
The more autonomous they become, they act less upon technologies, are asking all the right questions. What are the
preset instructions and more on a set of rules that may never liabilities? What do we need to be thinking about as a
have anticipated the specific circumstances under which the government? What risks do we need to worry about
machine might actually be operating. This makes it more controlling? Where's the separation of public and private data
difficult to attribute their behavior to the human amassed by these 'machines'? This kind of collaboration,
programming and design or to what the machine learns on development and experimentation is both exciting and tells
its own. us it's where we need to be as an organization.
Autonomous machines will challenge existing models of And in fact we are already insuring an autonomous pilot
liability. Most of the world's legal systems focus on causation project currently underway at London's Gatwick Airport. The
when determining who is responsible for a loss.It will be pilot is testing a fleet of autonomous vehicles to transport
increasingly difficult to determine if the design of the staff around the airport's airfields. Currently, no passengers
machine was responsible for the cause of loss or if the are involved in the pilot. The pilot is intended to
machine itself was the cause. This creates a gray area of demonstrate that autonomous vehicles can work safely in a
liability, challenging our traditional coverages. complex environment, like an airport, where a wide range
of different vehicle types operate in all directions, on and
When we look at how the law interprets it, our clients who off road systems.
are working to advance an autonomous society, we see
clearly the potential for elevated risk and runaway legal Moving Changes
defense costs particularly from casualty and professional
liability because they are intertwined in the manufacturing We truly believe that, not only will autonomous technology
of the autonomous machine. fundamentally change how the world will move people and
goods over the next 20 years; it's going to improve safety,
Groundbreaking protection increase mobility and transform lives, businesses and public
services. Just think of the advantages:
This is a new area for risk-and one that we, at XL Catlin,
have been looking at closely. It's estimated that there were 40,000 traffic deaths in 2017
due to vehicular crashes at the hands of human operators.
Our exclusive, global multi-year partnership with Oxbotica This statistic -could be drastically reduced with AVs and, what's
(one of the world's leading autonomy companies) and the more, we can actually extend mobility to a segment of our
DRIVEN consortium uniquely positions us to gain deeper society who currently cannot drive because of a disability.
insight and truly pioneer the evolution of insurance and new
capabilities to help innovators, businesses and individuals In 2016, OSHA reports there were 4,693 worker fatalities,
thrive in an autonomous world. and 2.9 million nonfatal private industrial and manufacturing
workplace injuries and illnesses. Consider the potential of
Just this April, DRIVEN successfully completed its first public
demonstration of the capabilities its fleet of autonomous
vehicles has to interact and 'talk' to each other. In the future,
they will share data and information back and forth so each
vehicle is able to plot more effective routes, avoid potential
hazards, and anticipate conditions more effectively.
The trials now taking place in and around Oxford - and
ultimately on roads and inner city environments between
Oxford and London - will also give us the opportunity to
create a risk assessment tool to enable the user of the
autonomous vehicle to make decisions about what level of
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