The first civil liability insurance policy for the owner of an anthropomorphic robot has been issued on the Russian insurance market.
From a legal standpoint, this is not a new type of insurance—it uses the classic structure of civil liability insurance. What is new is the source of risk itself: an autonomous robotic system capable of interacting with its environment and causing harm to third parties.
At the same time, insuring such risks presents a number of new challenges. Insurers will need to develop underwriting approaches in the absence of sufficient operational statistics on anthropomorphic robots and established practices for settling such claims. In addition, questions will inevitably arise regarding the allocation of liability among the robot owner, the equipment manufacturer, and the software developer, as well as the possibility of asserting subrogation claims.
At the same time, the market will likely not be limited to civil liability. As robotic systems become more widespread, we can expect the emergence of comprehensive insurance products that combine, in addition to liability insurance, coverage for the equipment itself, cyber risks, and business interruption losses. A single incident can simultaneously result in harm to third parties, damage to the robot, a software failure, and a halt in the production process; therefore, the development of hybrid insurance solutions appears to be the logical next step in the market’s evolution.
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