The insurance industry was given a taste last week of how technology is going to change motor vehicle and accident insurance.

Actuaries Institute President Estelle Pearson says delegates at the institute’s seminar in Sydney, themed The Changing Face of General Insurance, showed how insurers are being challenged to consider the extent of technological change – including the advent of the driverless car.

“One of the big discussions that we had was around technological changes and how they might impact insurance, particularly around improved vehicle safety,” she said.

“The prospect may be in the future that we don’t actually have motor vehicle accidents any more because all the cars are either very safe to drive or, in fact, driverless.”

Jessica Truong, the Road Safety Project Manager at Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission, says research shows that new automotive technology has major road safety benefits.

“There are a number of new and emerging technologies that can make a difference in road trauma terms,” she said. “Some of them are already available on the market, such as automatic emergency braking, a technology that can brake for the driver in the case of an emergency.

“We know through research that it can reduce rear-end collisions by up to about 30%.”

This is a statistic that will be of interest to the insurance industry.

“In relation to insurance it could potentially affect the premium structure and the amount of accidents that we actually see on the road,” Ms Truong said.