Japanese insurer Mitsui Sumitomo is developing a new insurance offering focused on covering electric vehicles (EV) in China, including the cost of inspections, tows, and other issues stemming from faulty EV batteries.
The insurer plans to roll out the service first in China, as early as in the current fiscal year. Mitsui Sumitomo is partnering with Panasonic Holdings for the proposition, with the latter monitoring EV batteries in real time through the cloud. Through this, drivers and insurance providers will be notified of any anomalies such as unusually high temperatures.
According to a report from Nikkei, both Mitsui Sumitomo and Panasonic recently began testing the cloud-based monitoring system with another Japanese logistics provider that uses EVs.
There are currently no insurance products in either Japan or China that would pay out claims in the stage before batteries are damaged in an accident. Mitsui Sumitomo hopes that this new proposition will help prevent accidents before they happen and allow logistics providers to operate EVs more safely.
Following its rollout in China, Mitsui Sumitomo will decide whether to expand the service to Japan, based on local market conditions.
Mitsui Sumitomo’s life insurance arm also recently unveiled a dating simulation game that teaches about different life insurance policies and their features.
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