Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, will soon be expanding its public tests of autonomous cars. In order to build trust with the people who will be placing an enormous amount of trust in cars that can drive themselves, Waymo has announced that it’s going to team up with an insurance startup to provide coverage to riders who use its ride-hailing service.
Waymo recently announced that its entire fleet of self-driving vehicles have racked up 4 million miles to date. The data that it has gathered has enabled the company to focus on varied and complex driving scenarios which has gone on to make the technology even better.
The company will eventually launch its driveless ride-hailing service early next year in a Phoenix suburb. Riders who hail one of its autonomous cars can now rest assured that they will be provided with insurance.
Waymo has teamed up with Trov for this purpose. Passengers will be insured for lost and damaged property as well as medical expenses related to the trip.
There’s no catch involved. Waymo won’t require passengers to pay for this insurance. Most of them won’t even know that insurance coverage is being provided by Trov, a five-year-old insurance tech startup that’s based in Danville, California.
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