"Steel Workers" Causing Trouble, Who's Footing the Bill?

From the human-machine dance on the Spring Festival Gala stage to intelligent services in restaurants and factories, robots are accelerating into everyday life. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the production of industrial robots increased by 31.1% year-on-year from January to February this year. While the industry is booming, risks such as robots losing control and causing injuries or equipment damage also arise. When these “steel employees” cause trouble, can insurance provide a safety net?

As robots gradually become part of daily life, their less obedient side is also beginning to emerge: at the first World Humanoid Robot Competition in August last year, there was an incident where a robot lost control and collided with technicians. Previously, there have been cases of service robots in restaurants malfunctioning and hitting customers, and logistics robots making operational errors that damaged goods. Such scenarios are not uncommon in reality.

For ordinary consumers and businesses, robot risks mainly fall into two categories: one is the risk of self-damage, as repairing precision components can be costly—ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan; the other is third-party liability, where robot malfunctions cause personal injuries or property damage, and compensation amounts can be difficult to bear. These two major pain points are the core reasons for the emergence of robot insurance.

The development of robot insurance relies on policy support. In May last year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission stated that it would promote the development of insurance products in emerging fields such as robots and low-altitude aircraft, effectively safeguarding enterprise innovation and development. Local governments are also actively promoting this, with many offering premium subsidies to stimulate market demand. For example, Beijing supports companies in insuring complete humanoid robot products, providing a subsidy of 50% of the actual premium, with a maximum of 1 million yuan per year; Ningbo is exploring the establishment of humanoid robot application insurance, offering subsidies of up to 80% of the premium, with a maximum of 2 million yuan; Shenzhen encourages insurance institutions to conduct specialized research on frontier technologies like humanoid robots.

Currently, leading insurance companies have taken the lead in entering the robot insurance sector: early this year, PICC Property & Casualty Insurance launched Guangdong’s first dedicated insurance for embodied intelligent robots; Ping An Property & Casualty launched the nation’s first “insurance + leasing” policy for embodied robots; in August last year, PICC Property & Casualty announced coverage for the first mass-produced consumer exoskeleton robot VIATRIX from Aoshark Intelligent. Robot insurance is moving from specialized fields into the public eye.

It is foreseeable that robots will become the “new members” of life and the “new employees” of industry. As an important tool for risk management, insurance not only supports technological innovation but also helps safeguard safety for ordinary people. However, as a new type of insurance, robot insurance still faces challenges such as insufficient historical data and complex responsibility delineation. Currently, insurers are actively exploring solutions through joint data platform construction, modular product development, and dynamic rate adjustments, aiming to build a more comprehensive protection system to support every step of these “steel employees.” In the future, as AI begins to “self-direct,” how insurance policies define the boundaries between “machine autonomous consciousness” and “design flaws” will be a profound industry challenge.

China Banking and Insurance News Reporter Tan Lezhi

Editor Li Haochen