Autopilot and Collision Avoidance Effect on Insurance Rates

I haven't seen anything posted on this, so I thought I'd throw this out there.

How do people think insurance rates will be affected by the changes coming our way with the autopilot and the new safety features, and how do you think these rate changes will be implemented?

For example all Model S owners probably won't all get the features at the same time, so that may pose an issue with respect to rate changes.

Presumably a car that can avoid collisions should pay less for collision insurance, and probably less for liability insurance, etc., than one that can't, so do we think we will see a discount when our cars have those capabilities?

And what about autopilot? I think the auto insurance companies could make the argument that someone using autopilot MAY be less attentive and MAY be MORE likely to get into an accident, and use that to actually RAISE rates on cars with autopilot. (I'm not saying they should. Just fearing they may.)

Thoughts?

jerry33 said:

What Alex said, but typically the more safety features you have the lower the rates. I'd hope the autopilot system would be able to determine if you're inattentive and take some action, such as alerts or even bringing the car to a halt on the side of the road. Accidents often happen during a short lapse of attention and this is what the autopilot can do. I suspect that number is far higher than the amount of people who will be inattentive because they have autopilot (and even those folks will be saved a lot of the time).

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I'm not questioning the value of the autopilot system, but rather what the insurance industry might make of it. I fear that they may raise rates simply because it's something new that they have no data on, and they'd rather be safe than sorry. I certainly hope they don't take that approach, but I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility,