Swiss Re partners with Baidu

Swiss Re has partnered with Chinese internet search provider Baidu to provide risk management expertise and ‘innovative’ insurance products for Baidu’s autonomous driving business.

“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.

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.

“Together with our partner Baidu, we analyse how automated cars perceive their surroundings and how they process that information and respond to it. Our goal is to understand how such vehicles behave differently than human-driven ones and quantify these differences. Ultimately, we aim to bring motor insurance products to the next level of innovation.” – Andrea Keller, Head of Automotive & Mobility Solutions at Swiss Re.