Swiss Re has entered into a partnership with Chinese tech giant Baidu to provide risk management expertise and innovative insurance products for Baidu’s autonomous driving business.

The partnership between Swiss Re and Baidu aims to further develop the autonomous driving industry and create a new industry paradigm. It allows reinsurers such as Swiss Re to tailor autonomous driving insurance products to meet the needs of technology companies. This partnership will advance risk management research and insurance protection for autonomous vehicles, representing an important step forward in building a comprehensive ecosystem of mobility services.

Russell Higginbotham, CEO Reinsurance Asia & Regional President Asia, said: “Our partnership with Baidu is a milestone in Swiss Re’s efforts to access new risk pools and close the protection gap through Swiss Re’s risk management expertise and innovation capabilities. By combining our respective risk knowledge and insights, we hope to jointly explore and develop innovative products and solutions, catalyse the transformation of the autonomous driving value chain and further advance the mobility ecosystem.“

The first focus of this partnership was the launch of autonomous valet parking insurance, the industry’s first ever insurance solution for Apollo Valet Parking (AVP) – an automated valet parking product designed by Baidu Apollo. Future collaboration between Swiss Re and Baidu will cover risk management research and insurance innovation for autonomous driving computing platforms, intelligent cockpits, robotaxi (driverless taxis) and other automated driving products.

Autonomous driving poses new challenges to the insurance industry, including rapid technological upgrades, increasingly diversified risks and limitation of data availability. This partnership will develop insurance solutions covering the entire value chain of autonomous driving, including the selection of risk factors, product pricing, claims and underwriting data standards. The solutions will be customised based on Baidu’s advanced technology and the data insights brought by Swiss Re and Baidu.

Andrea Keller, Head of Automotive & Mobility Solutions at Swiss Re, said: “Together with our partner Baidu, we analyse how automated cars perceive their surroundings and how they process that information and respond to it. Our goal is to understand how such vehicles behave differently than human-driven ones and quantify these differences. Ultimately, we aim to bring motor insurance products to the next level of innovation.“

As a leading global reinsurer, Swiss Re has a long history of making forward-looking investments in risk expertise of automous driving. Swiss Re has worked closely with global leading technology companies, OEMs and testing centers to obtain a deeper understanding of vehicle behavior and performance and to build customised insurance products and solutions. Swiss Re strives to provide comprehensive support and services to the mobility ecosystem — from product design, pricing and underwriting to  portfolio management and claims.

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