Car Insurance: AXA Making Adjustments to Include Electric Cars

AXA’s subsidiary in Switzerland recently conducted crash-tests to define EC-specific risks likely to induce accidents.

Through focusing on EC specifics, comparing them with regular vehicles’, AXA’s accident researchers stressed four main causes :
- Faster acceleration. Accidents with powerful models in electric luxury cars/SUVs are 40% more frequent than with conventionally powered cars. According to AXA, this could be accounted for by the fact that maximum acceleration with ECs is available immediately, whereas it takes longer to powerful combustion engines to reach maximum acceleration.
- Damaged EC batteries post-crash. Batteries are highly flammable and can catch fire up to 48h after a crash, making it more difficult to deal with the aftermath of an accident.
- Silent driving. The engine starts almost silently, which could cause accidents with pedestrians and cyclists.
- Increased use of driver assistance systems, leading drivers to trust the system too much and react poorly to risk-inducing situations.
Besides, even if the overall accident rates for electric vehicles are about the same as for regular cars, differences remain based on vehicles’ types. Micro and small-electric cars would generate around 10% fewer claims than conventionally powered cars of the same vehicle class.

Making adjustments to insurance offers in a new technological context. In order to cover these additional risks, AXA could increase the cost of electric cars-dedicated insurance premiums even if, for now, they resist hasty decisions. The point would be to study cars’ and car drivers’ behaviours, to adjust their offers and address specific risks.
AXA chooses to wait and see if these trends are confirmed and if the cost of dealing with electric cars-related accidents is actually higher.

AXA is looking into a new approach to car insurance for electric cars. Until now, many insurance groups have been discounting premiums for these vehicles since they generally are less autonomous, are used for shorter trips and at reduced speed. In France, AXA features a 30% discount on premiums for electric cars.
Also, AXA already teamed up with Navya (which designs self-driving electric vans) to craft an insurance offer for autonomous vehicles.
And Tesla officially entered the car insurance market in the US. This car manufacturer has long been claiming that conventional insurance contracts aren’t suited for their vehicles, and that the risk should be assessed while also taking into account driver assistance systems, likely to mitigate part of human-induced risk factors.

Category : Alertes quotidiennes