Waymo’s London entry and the Santa Monica child collision: What it means for Insurers

Waymo’s planned rollout of fully autonomous robotaxis in London in 2026 places the UK at the forefront of large scale autonomous vehicle (AV) deployment in Europe. For insurers, the expansion is strategically important not because of market size alone, but because it coincides with the transfer of liability for accidents from drivers to software developers and motor manufacturers when self-driving systems are engaged.

This shift occurs as regulators in the USA investigate a January 2026 collision in which a Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a school in Santa Monica, underscoring the real world loss scenarios insurers must now model.

Together, these developments highlight how autonomous mobility is reshaping risk ownership, claims causation, and capital exposure across motor, product liability, and technology insurance lines.

Liability shifting

Under the UK’s new AV regime, when a vehicle is operating in self driving mode, the occupant is no longer treated as the “driver.” Instead, liability for collision claims shifts to the Authorised Self Driving Entity (ASDE), typically the vehicle manufacturer or fleet operator. For insurers, this effectively accelerates the decline of personal motor liability risk and increases exposure to commercial fleet and product liability.

In practical terms, looking ahead, it could be that claims disputes will focus less on negligence and more on:

• system design and validation,
• sensor performance and perception failures,
• software decision making, and
• compliance with regulatory operating conditions.

Liability for claims will increasingly depend on vehicle telemetry, event data recorders, and software logs, rather than witness statements or driver behaviour. Access to the onboard evidence is crucial for insurers to respond to claims, but there is currently no legislative provision as to how, when and in what format the data will be made available.

Lessons from the Santa Monica school zone crash

The Santa Monica incident illustrates how AV risk differs from conventional motor losses. According to regulators in the USA, the child ran into the road from behind a parked SUV during school drop off hours and sustained minor injuries after the Waymo vehicle braked from around 17 mph to under 6 mph before impact. The vehicle did not have a supervisory driver on board at the time of the collision.

From an insurance perspective, even low speed impacts involving children and school zones carry heightened litigation risk, public scrutiny, and potential for elevated settlements. Further, regulatory findings matter - any determination that the system failed to exercise “appropriate caution” could materially affect coverage interpretation, exclusions, and future underwriting assumptions.

Uncertainty and risk

Waymo and its peers argue that autonomous systems reduce overall collision frequency and severity, citing lower injury causing crash rates compared with human drivers. While early data may support this trend, insurers face a shortage of credible long tail loss history, particularly for rare but high impact events.

More importantly, AVs introduce systemic risk characteristics uncommon in traditional motor portfolios. By way of example, a single software defect or update can affect thousands of vehicles simultaneously, potentially culminating in a vehicle recall.

Implications for the London Market

London’s trials will be closely watched by insurers as a real world stress test of autonomous performance in dense, pedestrian heavy environments. Early claims experience and data will likely influence the pricing of AV fleet and product liability policies.

A favourable loss profile could support the long term thesis that AVs stabilise claims volatility. Conversely, a small number of high profile incidents, particularly involving children or pedestrians, could harden the market.

Comment

It could be argued that Waymo’s London entry and the Santa Monica crash together demonstrate that autonomous vehicles are not eliminating risk, but redistributing it - from individuals to technology providers, and from frequency driven motor losses to complex, high severity liability exposures. For insurers, near term uncertainty is unavoidable, but so is the strategic importance of engaging early.

Weightmans will be providing regular updates on the release of the first batch of autonomous vehicles in Spring 2026 – although it should be noted that these autonomous vehicles will initially have a supervisory driver in the vehicle.