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

China Securities Journal

Developing new energy vehicles is an essential path for China to move from a major automobile producer to a strong automotive nation, and it is also a strategic measure to promote green development. In recent years, China’s new energy vehicle industry has achieved leapfrog growth, and the market landscape for new energy vehicle insurance is continuously reshaping.

To better serve industry transformation and upgrading amid the opportunities and challenges brought by the change in the new energy vehicle industry, Zhou Yanfang, a national People’s Congress representative and director of the China Pacific Strategic Research Center (ESG Office), recently suggested promoting high-quality development of new energy vehicle insurance from multiple aspects, including establishing a national-level intelligent driving data sharing standard and platform, accelerating the revision and improvement of laws and regulations related to intelligent driving, developing a key technology and service standard system, and implementing differentiated product innovation and pricing guidelines.

Changing Insurance Needs for New Energy Vehicles

As the market size of new energy vehicles continues to expand and their 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 features in risk structure, responsible parties, and coverage boundaries, which bring new challenges for insurance product innovation, model development, and risk management.

On one hand, the risk characteristics of new energy vehicles differ fundamentally from those of fuel vehicles. Traditional insurance underwriting and claims models are difficult to effectively adapt. For example, the “three-electric” system (battery, motor, and electronic control system) is a core risk area for new energy vehicles. As the number of new energy vehicles continues to grow and age, risks associated with the “three-electric” system will become more prominent, exerting long-term pressure on auto insurance payouts.

On the other hand, the widespread adoption of intelligent driving technology changes the logic of accident responsibility. The current legal framework and insurance product offerings have gaps. It is reported that reconstructing intelligent driving accidents requires multi-dimensional data support, including sensor recordings, algorithm decision trajectories, vehicle status, and surrounding environmental data. However, in scenarios such as accident investigation and insurance claims, data collection, storage, retrieval, and appraisal have yet to form unified standards, and issues such as unclear data ownership and inconsistent cooperation among enterprises directly affect the delineation of accident responsibility and the efficiency of insurance claims.

Building a National Intelligent Driving Data Sharing Standard and Platform

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

To promote continuous improvement in the insurance operation and service capabilities for new energy vehicles, Zhou Yanfang recommends that financial regulatory authorities take the lead, collaborate with industry stakeholders, and jointly develop China’s intelligent driving safety standards. From the source, a national intelligent driving and insurance data interaction platform should be established to break down information barriers among automakers, insurers, and testing agencies, forming a trusted data closed-loop covering the entire vehicle lifecycle. Standards for data collection, storage, retrieval, and appraisal should be unified, with clear definitions of data ownership, usage rights, and privacy protections.

Zhou Yanfang also suggests that, in line with the development of intelligent driving technology, relevant laws and regulations should be revised in a timely manner. The focus should be on clarifying the responsibility attribution rules for traffic accidents involving Level 3 (conditional automatic driving) and above, and establishing a responsibility-sharing framework suitable for “human-machine co-driving.” Key technology and service standards should be developed—for example, in damage assessment, establishing unified standards for loss determination and valuation basis to reduce disputes between insurance companies and repair shops during claims, thereby improving claim efficiency and transparency. Additionally, differentiated product innovation and pricing guidelines should be implemented to accelerate the development of insurance products in emerging fields such as intelligent driving, battery swapping technology, and vehicle-electricity separation, with corresponding guidance issued to provide a compliant space and institutional expectations for industry innovation.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

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