While praised for its potential safety benefits, some industry insiders are wary that mandating speed limiters on all vehicles plying European roads may drive up car insurance premiums.
Starting July 06, 2022, all vehicles sold in Europe will be required to incorporate a speed-limiting feature called intelligent speed assist (ISA) technology. But the uncertainty surrounding how the technology can be used has raised concerns in the insurance sector.
Ryan Fulthorpe, motoring expert at comparison website GoCompare, has warned that the situation might lead to auto insurance confusion.
“You would expect all [features such as collision avoidance, parking sensors, and onboard cameras] to have a positive impact on premiums, due to the way in which you would hope they can reduce incidents and lower claims frequencies,” Futhrope told The Daily Express. “What we don’t know is if and how insurers ingest and then utilise their data. It also depends on how the above are declared to the insurer.”
Several car manufacturers – including Ford, Jaguar, Honda, Renault, and Volvo – have already begun incorporating factory-fitted ISA technology in some of their vehicles.
All new cars, buses, trucks, and vans are required to be equipped with an ISA, while the technology also needs to be adapted to motorcycles.
The European Union will require all new cars to have the speed-limiting feature from July, 2024. This mandate is among several car manufacturing laws that the UK government has retained following Brexit.
The European Commission has called the technology a “best-effort driver assistance system,” while stating that “the driver is always responsible” for following traffic rules.
Experts, however, expect that motorists will be able to override the limiter technology, raising concerns about liability and road safety. Some are worried that it could also have an impact on claim processing times.
“If car manufacturers take responsibility for the incident of autonomous vehicles and therefore remove the need for an insurer to get involved, that likely will have a positive impact on claim processing times as you are likely to have fewer claims to look at,” Fulthorpe said. “However, if there is any contention around who’s at fault or who is liable, claim times will likely increase.”
He added that for the public to get onboard with this requirement, the responsibility for accidents would have to fall on the shoulders of the manufacturers.
“[But] if the risk is with the car provider, then that will have an impact on insurance premiums,” he continued.
Some manufacturers, including Volvo and Mercedes, said they would accept full responsibility for accidents that occur while autonomous technology is active. But industry experts believe this could mean that premiums would be built into the cost of the vehicles
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has been pushing for the use of mandatory speed limiters as this is predicted to reduce collisions 30%.
The European Commission, meanwhile, anticipates that the use of this technology, along with other measures included in the legislation, could prevent 140,000 serious road traffic injuries by 2038. The commission also hopes to bring road deaths down to zero by 2050.
