The Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR), the association of insurance regulators, has published an issues paper on connected and automated vehicles (CAV) and their impact on the automobile insurance market. Stakeholders are asked to provide their comments and observations about the paper to the CCIR before March 15, 2021.
“CAV testing has already begun on public roads both in Canada and across the globe. As these tests progress, the industry will be in a better position to deal with some of the challenges unique to CAV,” the CCIR states in the paper. “Discussions between Canadian insurance regulators have already begun. The CCIR however intends to further the dialogue with CAV developers, the legal and insurance sectors in order to explore a host of questions and risks and to jointly identify future regulatory needs.”
Prepared by the CCIR’s fintech working group, the paper states that stakeholders expect to see full self-driving vehicles in the next five to 10 years. They add that collaboration between the industry and different levels of government, tech companies, the telecom sector, car manufacturers and test facilities will be important.
Liability issues
“As the shift towards automated vehicles occurs, the responsibility for collisions remains a question to be answered,” say the report’s authors. “Is an accident the responsibility of the vehicle, their manufacturers and their suppliers or does it remain the responsibility of the driver? Liability will now arise from different sources, and therefore, needs to be addressed from different perspectives and further be adequately reflected in an insurance policy.”
They add that although companies are already testing vehicles on Canadian roads, provincial and territorial governments are playing catch-up with legislation and regulation, trying to balance the need to protect the public without stifling innovation.
The issues paper also reviews survey responses from government and industry associations, the association received 20 responses between February and March in 2020, including respondents' thoughts on when CAV will be adopted and to what degree the adoption will change the insurance landscape.
Of those surveyed, 60 per cent said they believed autonomous vehicles would be on roads within the next 10 years while 25 per cent do not expect to see these vehicles circulated for at least 15 years. 90 per cent said autonomous vehicles will have a fairly significant or very significant impact on the automobile insurance industry in Canada.
