Kyriaki Noussia – författare

When will we see autonomous vehicles on our roads? The answer is that to some degree, they are already here. Numerous organisations are testing fully autonomous prototypes on public roads in the UK, and even commercially available vehicles already have several ‘quasi-autonomous’ features. KPMG has forecasted that the connected and autonomous vehicles market could be worth as much as £51 billion to the British economy by 2030 and could create some 30,000 new jobs over the same period.

Accordingly, the UK and a number of other jurisdictions are already implementing legal reforms with a view to smoothing the path for this technology. Notably, Parliament has passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 dealing with the insurance of such vehicles, and changes are currently being made to the Road Vehicle (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and to the Highway Code to accommodate highly automated technologies. The government has also issued non-statutory guidance in relation to testing on public roads, and in relation to vehicle cybersecurity.

Against this rapidly changing landscape, this book analyses the key legal issues facing autonomous vehicles, including testing on public roads, insurance, product liability, and cyber security and data protection. It also examines the approach being taken in other jurisdictions, including Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the USA, and South Africa.

When will we see autonomous vehicles on our roads? The answer is that to some degree, they are already here. Numerous organisations are testing fully autonomous prototypes on public roads in the UK, and even commercially available vehicles already have several ‘quasi-autonomous’ features. KPMG has forecasted that the connected and autonomous vehicles market could be worth as much as £51 billion to the British economy by 2030 and could create some 30,000 new jobs over the same period.

Accordingly, the UK and a number of other jurisdictions are already implementing legal reforms with a view to smoothing the path for this technology. Notably, Parliament has passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 dealing with the insurance of such vehicles, and changes are currently being made to the Road Vehicle (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and to the Highway Code to accommodate highly automated technologies. The government has also issued non-statutory guidance in relation to testing on public roads, and in relation to vehicle cybersecurity.

Against this rapidly changing landscape, this book analyses the key legal issues facing autonomous vehicles, including testing on public roads, insurance, product liability, and cyber security and data protection. It also examines the approach being taken in other jurisdictions, including Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the USA, and South Africa.

This Volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation explores the key trends in InsurTech and the potential legal and regulatory issues that accompany them. There is a proliferation of ideas and concepts within InsurTech that will fundamentally change the market in the next few years. These innovations have the potential to change the way the insurance industry works and alter the relationships between customers and insurers, resulting in insurance products that are more closely aligned to individual preferences and priced more appropriately to the risk. Increasing use of technology in the insurance sector is having both a disruptive and transformative impact on areas including product development, distribution, modelling, underwriting and claims and administration practice. The result is a new industry, known as InsurTech. But while the insurance market looks to technology for greater efficiency, regulators are beginning to raise concerns about managing potential risks.

The first part of the book examines technological innovations relevant for insurance, such as FinTech, InsurTech, Sharing Economy, and the Internet of Things. The second part then gathers contributions on insurance contract law in a digitalized world, while the third part focuses on cyber insurance and robots. Last but not least, the fourth part of the book discusses legal and ethical questions regarding autonomous vehicles and transportation, including the shipping industry, as well as their impact on the insurance sector and civil liability. Written by legal scholars and practitioners, the book offers international, comparative and European perspectives.

The Chapters "FinTech, InsurTech and the Regulators" by Viktoria Chatzara, "Smart Contracts in Insurance. A Law and Futurology Perspective" by Angelo Borselli and "Room for Compulsory Product Liability Insurance in the European Union for Smart Robots?” by Aysegul Bugra are available open access undera CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. All three open access chapters were funded by BIPAR.

This Volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation focuses on transparency as the guiding principle of modern insurance law. It consists of chapters written by leaders in the respective field, who address transparency in a range of civil and common law jurisdictions, along with overview chapters. Each chapter reviews the transparency principles applicable in the jurisdiction discussed.

Whether expressly or impliedly, all jurisdictions recognize a duty on the part of the insured to make a fair presentation of the risk when submitting a proposal for cover to the insurers, although there is little consensus on the scope of that duty. Disputed matters in this regard include: whether it is satisfied by honest answers to express questions, or whether there is a spontaneous duty of disclosure; whether facts relating to the insured’s character, as opposed to the nature of the risk itself, are to be presented to the insurers; the role of insurance intermediaries in the placement process; and the remedy for breach of duty.

Transparency is, however, a much wider concept. Potential policyholders are in principle entitled to be made aware of the key terms of coverage and to be warned of hidden traps (such as conditions precedent, average clauses and excess provisions), but there are a range of different approaches. Some jurisdictions have adopted a “soft law” approach, using codes of practice for pre-contract disclosure,  while other jurisdictions employ the rather nebulous duty of (utmost) good faith. Leaving aside placement, transparency is also demanded after the policy has been incepted. The insured is required to be transparent during the claims process. There is less consistency in national legislation regarding the implementation of transparency by insurers in the context of handling claims.

This volume focuses on transparency as the guiding principle for insurance regulation and supervisory law. All chapters were written by experts in their respective fields, who address transparency in a wide range of European and non-European jurisdictions. Each chapter reviews the transparency principles applicable in the jurisdiction discussed. While the European jurisdictions reflect different facets of the principle as emerging from EU law on insurance, the principle has developed quite differently in other jurisdictions.

Arbitration is an essential component in business. In an age when transparency is a maxim, important issues which the laws governing arbitration currently fail to address are the extent to which disclosure of information can be constrained by private agreement along with the extent to which the duty to preserve confidentiality can be stretched. Absent a coherent legal framework and extensive qualitative and quantitative data, it is equally difficult to suggest and predict future directions. This book offers a tool for attaining centralised access to otherwise fragmentary and dispersed material, as well as a comprehensive analysis and detailed exposition of the position in relation to confidentiality in arbitration in the jurisdictions of England, USA, France and Germany.