Swiss Re has entered into a partnership with Chinese tech giant Baidu

The FINANCIAL — 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, company said. ”
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 service”, Swiss Re 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.“Russell Higginbotham, CEO Reinsurance Asia & Regional President Asia, said.

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.