Tesla, the electric car maker,plans to launch its own insurance product in May The company's co-founder and CEO Elon Musk confirmed the company’s insurance plans in a Q1 earnings call.
When asked during an earnings call if Tesla is considering launching an insurance program, Musk says the company is working on one.
“The answer is yes we are creating a Tesla insurance product and we hope to launch that in about a month. It will be much more compelling than anything else out there,” he said.
The coverage Musk intends to offer will be a “much more compelling” insurance option than the high premium options Tesla owners have today, he said.
While the CEO did not dive into the details about how Tesla would offer “more compelling” insurance coverage, he hinted it linked to the data Tesla has access to in terms of how people drive its vehicles.
In response to a subsequent question about the safety of Autopilot, Musk said Tesla gives more details about safety to insurance companies.
“We do give some more detailed information to insurance companies to help with rates. And obviously as we launch our own insurance product next month, we will certainly incorporate that information into the insurance rates,” Musk said.
The move would most likely see Tesla’s Autopilot system being leveraged to drive down policy costs for drivers.
Autopilot enables the car to steer, brake and accelerate automatically. Not only has the system been shown to reduce the rate of accidents on the road, but the quality and quantity of data it collects can help create a highly-defined risk profile of a car and its driver.
“As we launch our own insurance product next month, we will certainly incorporate that information into the insurance rates,” said Musk.
He later added that Autopilot information is already being shared with insurers in an effort to help reduce rates.
Tesla has access to “direct knowledge of the risk profile of customers based on the car,” Musk said. This gives the company a significant “price sort of arbitrage or information arbitrage opportunity,” he explained.
Musk said, if potential Tesla customers “want to buy Tesla insurance, they have to agree to not drive the car in a crazy way — or if they can, but then the insurance rate is higher.”
According to Elektrek, Tesla owners are often charged very high insurance premiums. That’s why the firm launched the InsureMyTesla program a few years ago, which involved Tesla working with third-party insurers to bring insurance costs down.
Now Musk plans to take things a step further. As PC Mag reports, the new Tesla insurance program looks set to be managed completely in-house.