Swiss Re and Chinese tech giant Baidu are teaming up to further develop the autonomous driving industry, announced Swiss Re.

The partnership between Swiss Re and Baidu aims to further develop the autonomous driving industry by advancing risk management research and insurance protection for autonomous vehicles. It allows reinsurers such as Swiss Re to tailor autonomous driving insurance products to meet the needs of technology companies, explained Swiss Re.

Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.

The firms said that autonomous driving poses new challenges to the insurance industry, including rapid technological upgrades, increasingly diversified risks and limitation of data availability.

This partnership will develop insurance products covering the entire value chain of autonomous driving, including the selection of risk factors, product pricing, claims and underwriting data standards.

The first focus of this partnership was the launch of autonomous valet parking insurance, the industry’s first ever insurance solution for Apollo Valet Parking – an automated valet parking product designed by Baidu Apollo.

Future collaboration between Swiss Re and Baidu will cover risk management and insurance research for autonomous driving computing platforms, intelligent cockpits, robotaxis and other automated driving products.

Andrea Keller, head of Automotive & Mobility Solutions at Swiss Re, said the partnership seeks to analyse how automated cars perceive their surroundings and how they process that information and respond to it. “Our goal is to understand how such vehicles behave differently than human-driven ones and quantify these differences. Ultimately, we aim to bring motor insurance products to the next level of innovation,” Keller said.