[E501]Look, no claims! | 经济学人
本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist 2016年第39期，Business版块。
Autonomous car insurance
Self-driving cars are set radically to change motor insurance
Sep 24th 2016
ON THE list of industries set to be disrupted by autonomous cars, the motor-insurance business[汽车保险业务] can claim a high place. The regime of compulsory insurance[1] in rich countries, with the insurer[承保人/保险商] of the at-fault driver paying for damage, is reasonable in a world where 90% of accidents are caused by human error. But autonomy is supposed to mean that accidents drop by up to four-fifths, and those that occur may not be a human’s fault. The motor-insurance market[车险市场] may shrink by 60% by 2040, according to KPMG[毕马威], an accounting firm.
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Lawyers and insurers concur that liability[责任险] will move from private car-owners[私家车车主] towards manufacturers for crashes when a car is in autonomous mode. But under the current legal system in Britain and America an owner might still be blamed for an accident in self-driving mode if, say, he neglected to install the latest software update, says Richard Farnhill of Allen & Overy, a law firm. A manufacturer might equally well try to shift the blame to a components supplier[零部件供应商].
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The best way to avoid endless blame-shifting[推卸责任] and litigation[2] may be what lawyers call a “strict” liability regime[严格责任制] that automatically places responsibility on the owner. The insurer would keep an important role, of ensuring speedy victim compensation and assigning blame to the manufacturer or other at-fault parties. But that approach would still mean lower risk, and hence lower premiums[3], for insurers.
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That regime also assumes that private car ownership remains widespread. But autonomous cars in the future may well be owned and operated in fleets, perhaps by a souped-up[4] Uber or by car manufacturers. Personal motor insurers would be out of luck. Only those who specialise in[专门从事(研究)/经营] commercial fleet insurance would do well. Some manufacturers would simply “self-insure” and assume liability[承担责任]. Volvo, Google and Mercedes have said they will do so with their self-driving cars.
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Hélène Chauveau, head of emerging risks at AXA, a French insurer, reckons that the persistence of existing risks, like manufacturing defects[生产缺陷;制造瑕疵], and the emergence of new threats like hacking, will leave a role for insurers. Yet generally, notes Anand Rao of PwC[普华永道], an accounting firm, they have been slow to react to faster-than-expected technological progress. There are no actuarial tables[精算师的理论数值;精算表], it seems, to help insure against that.
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注释
[1]the regime of compulsory insurance 强制限制度
强制险是指有政府部门强制进行保险，此保险保障的是第三人，也就是两个受保对象出现意外连累第三者的，此时第三者出现损失的由保险公司进行索赔，此保险考虑到受保对象可能无支付条件的却给第三人造成损失，为第三者给予补偿，最常见的险种为交强险。
[2]litigation：the process of taking a case to a court of law so that a judgment can be made 诉讼，起诉
The company has consistently denied responsibility, but it agreed to the settlement to avoid the expense of lengthy litigation.
公司一直在推卸责任，但同意这一调解方案以避免漫长的诉讼所带来的花费。
[3]premium：an amount of money paid to get insurance 保险费
Car insurance premiums have increased this year.
今年汽车保险费涨了。
The premiums for healthcare plans are high.
保健计划的保险费很高。
[4]soup sth up：to make something more powerful or more attractive by making changes to it, especially when it is old 加强（尤指旧物）的性能；对…进行改良
New circuit boards can be used to soup up existing machines.
新电路板可用来提高现有机器的性能。
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以上言论不代表本人立场。
原文摘自The economist，仅外语学习之用。
其中生词解释来源于Cambridge Dictionaries
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