As you probably already know, car insurance is becoming an increasingly larger financial burden to the average Florida driver. Well, it seems that could change in the future... Imagine a world where your car drives itself and car accidents very rarely ever happen. According to studies, it doesn’t seem to be that far-fetched!
A recent study is indicating that by 2025, self-driving vehicles could reduce the automobile insurance sector by up to 40 percent. That same study predicts that nearly all vehicles, including commercial vehicles, will be self-driving by 2050, with the biggest conversion over to self-driving cars starting around 2025.
What does this mean for you as a driver? Along with self-driving cars come fewer accidents. The more cars drive themselves, the less accidents should happen – in theory, anyway – therefore reducing the cost of insurance. The amount of claims paid due to accidents is a very large factor in how much insurance companies charge their clients. So, the premiums (the amount that someone pays for insurance) for those who own self-driving cars should decrease dramatically.
Lack of vehicle ownership could also result in savings for consumers as well. Imagine summoning a car via your smart phone, similar to Uber or some other ride-sharing service. Except when the car arrives to pick you up, there is no driver!
Google has already developed this technology and has been testing it for years. When self-driving cars become affordable for all, you could see a dramatic shift in vehicle ownership from separate individuals owning their own vehicles, to large ride-sharing companies, taxi services, or even local governments owning their own massive fleet of self-driving vehicles to get people to their day-to-day destinations.
This would not only eliminate the average person’s car insurance cost, it would also eliminate the cost of purchasing a vehicle, vehicle maintenance, and other associated fees. Now, of course, you would be charged a fee to use a service like that, but with a vehicle driving itself, one could imagine that the costs would be very reasonable considering there would be no labor costs and even fewer commercial car insurance costs due to eliminating human error (just a little factoid: 90 percent of accidents each year are caused by driver error!).
Not only could self-driving cars reduce your insurance costs, they could perhaps eliminate you having to buy a car, therefore eliminating your need to buy car insurance. Now, this won’t most likely be a reality for at least a decade, but it is possible that this upcoming generation could potentially grow up in a world where they never have to nor need to know how to drive a vehicle! Now that’s something to think about!
