The UK’s motor insurance industry is bracing for another milestone in its evolution, as Uber and Cambridge autonomous vehicle start-up Wayve announce plans to pilot fully driverless taxi services on London’s public roads.
Backed by heavyweight investors including Microsoft and SoftBank, Wayve will supply the technology powering the fleet, while Uber will offer the customer-facing platform via its app. The move signals a critical phase in the UK’s broader strategy to establish itself as a serious player in the global autonomous mobility sector - one that will rely heavily on the flexibility and foresight of the insurance industry.
The trial comes as the government fast-tracks legislation under the Automated Vehicles Act, allowing pilot schemes to operate driverless vehicles without safety drivers present. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed that public trials are expected to begin next spring, a year earlier than previously announced.
For insurers, this raises familiar yet unresolved questions about risk, liability and policyholder obligations. The transition from human to machine control is expected to unsettle long-established assumptions within motor underwriting, claims management and pricing models.
Barry Stevens, senior technical underwriter at Zurich, has already noted the shift in accountability that full automation entails. “It relieves the injured party from having to establish whether it was the driver or the car who was ‘driving’ at the time of the accident,” he said in earlier commentary, highlighting how the new legal framework places primary liability on the motor insurer - even if a crash stems from a software malfunction.
The implications are significant. Under the new rules, insurers may find themselves pursuing recovery from vehicle manufacturers if an accident is proven to be the result of a system failure. Moreover, occupants of autonomous vehicles may be treated more like passengers than drivers, potentially opening the door to a broader pool of claimants.
The Wayve-Uber trial also underscores a longer-term trend away from traditional vehicle ownership, and towards fleet-led, subscription-based or ride-hailing models. With fully autonomous vehicles expected to command high upfront costs and require regular software updates, leasing and fleet management models are likely to dominate - raising the prospect that insurers will increasingly issue policies to manufacturers or fleet operators, not individuals.
"This could mean the insurance model shifts from issuing policies to individuals and more to a fleet or business-to-business model," Zurich's Stevens observed. In this context, underwriting expertise may pivot toward systems reliability, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and operational risk, rather than driver behaviour and claims history.
While Uber’s self-driving ambitions have previously focused on the United States, this marks the firm’s most significant step into Europe’s regulatory labyrinth. Wayve’s choice of London - renowned for its dense traffic, varied road signage and unpredictable pedestrian activity - is no coincidence. It provides a complex environment for refining its “Embodied AI” technology, which trains vehicles to interpret and respond to real-world human behaviours.
As Uber’s chief operating officer Andrew Macdonald put it: “Our vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere, and this trial in London brings that future closer to reality.”
David Sweeney, head of taxi broking at the taxi insurer told taxi-point: “I’d be surprised if the public embrace driverless taxis within the next two years. I’d expect them to want to see several years of autonomous cars in successful operation and proof that they are safe before they accept them as the norm.
“It’s certainly a bold move from Uber, which could change the face of travel as we know it. But it does raise the concerning question of what would happen to the drivers currently employed in the industry.”
For the insurance industry, that vision must be matched with an equally robust approach to emerging risks. These include not only conventional exposures such as collision, theft and weather damage, but new frontiers in cyber threats, software malfunctions and shared liability between software providers, vehicle owners and end-users.
Claims teams may soon need to unravel incidents involving no driver at all, only algorithmic decisions and machine-learned behaviours. For brokers, the challenge will be educating clients on their responsibilities - including the importance of installing software updates and understanding operational limitations of autonomy.
As the lines between personal and commercial use blur, so too must the industry’s risk frameworks evolve. And with Uber and Wayve poised to become early adopters in Britain’s self-driving revolution, insurers will be expected to not only respond - but to lead.
