National People's Congress Deputy Zhou Yanfang suggests: Accelerate the revision and improvement of laws and regulations related to intelligent driving.

Huang Yiling China Securities Journal

Developing new energy vehicles is the only path for China to transition from a major automotive country to an automotive power, and it is also a strategic move to promote green development. In recent years, China’s new energy vehicle industry has achieved leapfrog development, and the market landscape for new energy vehicle insurance is continually being reshaped.

In response to the opportunities and challenges brought about by the transformation of the new energy vehicle industry, Zhou Yanfang, a representative of the National People’s Congress and director of the Strategic Research Center (ESG Office) of China Pacific Insurance, recently suggested promoting high-quality development of new energy vehicle insurance from multiple aspects, including establishing national-level intelligent driving data sharing standards and platforms, accelerating the revision and improvement of relevant laws and regulations for intelligent driving, formulating key technology and service standard systems, and implementing differentiated product innovation and pricing guidelines.

Changing Insurance Demand for New Energy Vehicles

As the market size of new energy vehicles continues to expand and the level of intelligence rapidly increases, the risk characteristics and insurance needs of vehicles are undergoing profound changes.

Zhou Yanfang believes that compared to traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles exhibit new characteristics in terms of risk structure, responsible parties, and insurance coverage boundaries, presenting new challenges for insurance product innovation and risk management.

On one hand, the risk characteristics of new energy vehicles are fundamentally different from those of fuel vehicles, making traditional insurance underwriting and claims models difficult to effectively adapt. For example, the “three electric” systems (battery, motor, and electronic control system) have become the core risk of new energy vehicles. As the number of new energy vehicles continues to grow and gradually age, the risks associated with the “three electric” systems will become more pronounced, creating long-term pressure on auto insurance payouts.

On the other hand, the proliferation of intelligent driving technology has changed the logic of accident responsibility, and there are institutional gaps in the current legal framework and insurance product supply. It is reported that reconstructing intelligent driving accidents requires multidimensional information support, such as sensor records, algorithm decision tracks, vehicle status, and surrounding environmental data. However, in scenarios like accident investigations and insurance claims, data collection, storage, retrieval, and assessment have yet to form unified standards, and issues such as unclear data ownership and varying cooperation levels among companies directly affect the division of accident responsibility and the efficiency of insurance claims.

Establishing National-Level Intelligent Driving Data Sharing Standards and Platforms

Currently, the rapid development of intelligent driving technology has made vehicle operation data a core basis for accident determination, risk pricing, and claims processing.

To continuously enhance the operational and service capabilities of new energy vehicle insurance, Zhou Yanfang suggested that financial regulatory authorities take the lead, collaborating with various industry parties to jointly develop Chinese safety standards for intelligent driving, and to establish a national-level intelligent driving and insurance data exchange platform from the source. This would involve breaking down information barriers between automobile manufacturing, insurance, and testing institutions to form a reliable data closed loop covering the entire vehicle lifecycle. Unified data interface standards and security specifications should be established around data collection, storage, retrieval, and assessment, clarifying data ownership, usage rights, and privacy protection requirements.

Zhou Yanfang also recommended, in line with the development progress of intelligent driving technology, to timely initiate the revision of relevant laws and regulations, focusing on clearly defining the rules for determining responsible parties in traffic accidents involving L3 (conditionally automated driving) and above intelligent driving modes, and to establish a responsibility division framework that accommodates “human-machine co-driving”; to formulate key technology and service standard systems, such as establishing unified loss assessment standards and pricing bases in damage assessment to reduce disputes between insurance companies and repair enterprises during the claims process, thus improving claims efficiency and transparency; and to implement differentiated product innovation and pricing guidelines, expediting the development of insurance products in emerging fields such as intelligent driving, battery swapping technology, and vehicle-battery separation, while issuing corresponding guidance to provide compliant space and institutional expectations for industry innovation.

(Editor: Wen Jing)

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