Robotaxis crash less. So why isn't your insurance cheaper?
Tue, September 22, 2026 at 2:24 AM GMT+3 3 min read
Waymo's driverless fleet is crashing at a rate that should be worrying to anyone who sells car insurance. The company's data through March 2026 shows 0.01 serious-injury crashes per million miles across 220 million rider-only miles, against a human benchmark of 0.23, a 94% reduction.
Alex Timm, founder of Root Inc, which sells auto insurance, recently joined TheStreet Roundtable to discuss how Waymo and Tesla's autonomous fleets will impact insurance.
"The market I think will fundamentally transform," Timm said. "Change the dynamics of pricing, change the dynamics of who owns the liability, really change everything."
Less than 1% of miles
The catch is timing. Waymo now runs in 11 U.S. metros, including Nashville, San Francisco, Austin, and more. Tesla recently unveiled their Cybercabs on Austin streets this month, and is testing in other cities.
Autonomous vehicles have driven roughly 360 million cumulative miles on U.S. roads, against about 3.2 trillion miles Americans drive every year.
"Less than one percent of all miles driven are actually driven by autonomous vehicles," Timm said.
That leaves the $350 billion U.S. personal auto insurance market intact for now.
The $175,000 fender-bender
Where robotaxis are already showing up is in the cost of a wreck. A Waymo is a Jaguar I-PACE carrying roughly $100,000 in sensors and cameras, about $175,000 all in by one outside estimate.
"If a sensor is damaged or certainly if any of the LIDAR detectors are damaged, it's almost impossible to actually repair," Timm said.
That same dynamic has been hitting ordinary cars too, driving increases in costs for car insurance faster than groceries, gas, and rent.
The Highway Loss Data Institute finds driver-assistance systems have cut claim frequency by 13% to 39% while raising the cost of the claims that remain, largely because modern cars use more complicated technology.
The average auto claim now runs close to $13,000.
Timm says a typical customer pays "$15,000 or so every six months." If autonomous vehicles keep performing as they have, he said, "that number could very well be cut in half or even more."
More news:
Getting inside the car
Root's plan is to be inside the car before that happens.
"We're partnering with these OEMs that are developing a lot of this technology and that actually control the vehicles so that we can embed directly with the vehicle technology," Timm said.
Pulling data straight from the vehicle shows how risk is actually changing.
"They're not crashing very much, but they're also not driving in a lot of very risky situations."
Root's second-quarter shareholder letter names Hyundai Capital America, Toyota and Carvana as partners, with partner and agent channels making up 51% of new business. The company earned $25.4 million in the quarter, spending about 92 cents on claims and expenses for every dollar of premium it collected.
"The vehicle manufacturers are the ones that are the closest to truly controlling this kind of technology," Timm said. "That's really the cornerstone to our strategy."
Root Inc. is included in the recently launched Roundtable 100, and is currently ranked #14, indicating that the company has lots of room to grow.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Sep 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the Personal Finance section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Yorumlar (0)
Giriş yaparak yorum yazabilirsin.
İlk yorumu sen yaz.