Robots also need to get a "accident insurance"

What R&D failure risks are covered by AI · Exclusive insurance?

Our reporter, Qu Xinming

On the performance stage, robots spin and jump; in ordinary homes, “elderly and children” have added intelligent assistants; in factory production lines, precise operations are in hand… In recent years, embodied intelligent robots have entered more and more production and life scenarios, and the demand for risk protection has grown accordingly. Recently, many insurance companies have successively launched exclusive insurance products targeting the risks of embodied robot R&D, production, and scene applications. What situations do these insurance products cover? What role do they play in promoting robot product adoption and industrial development? The reporter recently conducted interviews.

Insurance provides services for the entire embodied intelligent industry chain

Not long ago, the Guangdong Shenzhen Robot 6S store expanded and upgraded, with a variety of innovative robot immersive experiences attracting many customers.

From traditional massage, moxibustion, coffee brewing, to new brain-controlled experiences, human-computer chess, dialogue interactions, and even robot boxing matches and human-computer cooperative battles, “this store integrates robot sales, accessories, after-sales, as well as leasing and personalized customization, allowing users to intuitively experience the robot’s movement and interaction capabilities. Through scene-based displays, it helps efficiently connect supply and demand,” said store manager Lin Feng.

But as robots are applied in larger scenarios, some risks have emerged: during interactive demonstrations, robots may cause personal injury or property damage to third parties; on-site staff involved in setup, debugging, and maintenance may also encounter accidents.

Who bears these risks? “We customize exclusive insurance plans to cover damages caused by robots to third parties within the venue, and can also provide additional protections based on the store’s differentiated risk needs, ensuring that new business formats remain controllable in risks while open for experience,” said Shi Hequn, director of the Group Business Unit at Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance.

From exhibition and experience to usage, and from front-end R&D and pilot testing to other stages, insurance is providing diversified adaptive services for the development of the embodied intelligent industry.

A financial director of a robot company, Zhang Hao, said that a new type of elderly care robot under development faced a halt, with about 2 million yuan of initial investment at risk of “going down the drain,” but insurance provided some financial compensation.

An enterprise manager using power inspection robots introduced that the cost of purchasing a single robot is about 300k yuan, and the company has insured the robot’s property insurance, “so there’s financial support for repairing the robot.”

Industry insiders say that for users, robot insurance coverage is also a “health report” on its reliability. In fields like healthcare, logistics, and public services, robots with insurance coverage are more market-acceptable, and procurement decision cycles are shortened. International market experience shows that robot products often need “insurance” to be practically applied.

Zhang Chunguang, a relevant person in charge at Deyi Robotics, believes that collaboration within the insurance industry to build a good ecosystem is conducive to robots entering the market, scenes, and going overseas.

Insurance helps enterprises innovate by covering R&D costs loss and failure of成果转化

The “China Development Report 2025” released by the Development Research Center of the State Council shows that China’s embodied intelligent industry is in its early stages, with the market size expected to reach 400 billion yuan by 2030 and break through 1 trillion yuan by 2035, further driving applications in transportation logistics, industrial manufacturing, and commercial services. As robots move toward more open and complex scenarios, the insurance industry faces new challenges.

“From experimental validation to testing lines, and then to large-scale mass production and commercialization, enterprises urgently need to front-load risk management,” said Shi Hequn. Insurance institutions should assist enterprises in improving operational standards, on-site management, safety inspections, and emergency response mechanisms.

Insurance has begun to play a role in supporting enterprise R&D and innovation. In Guangdong, PICC Property & Casualty’s “Zhiyanbao” includes technical solutions and raw material defects within coverage, providing a full-cycle risk barrier for R&D, small-scale testing, and pilot testing, better reducing direct losses caused by R&D failures.

“Insurance covering R&D costs loss and成果转化失败 can reduce economic losses caused by project stagnation or interruption, helping enterprises focus more on R&D and innovation activities, and providing them with confidence and capability to ‘break through’,” said Wei Lì, director of the China Insurance Research Institute at Renmin University of China.

Industry insiders say that the promotion of remote operation and cloud control technology makes cybersecurity, data security, and system stability key prerequisites for large-scale robot applications. In response, relevant persons at PICC Property & Casualty said they will further improve the digital security insurance product system, and the company has also launched comprehensive insurance for embodied robots, covering cybersecurity and system crashes.

Given the intertwined risks of hardware failures, algorithm defects, operational errors, and cyberattacks, many insurance institutions say they will continue to improve integrated one-stop insurance solutions.

The embodied intelligent industry is rapidly iterating and scene-creating, but insurance innovation faces challenges such as data insufficiency and difficult pricing.

“We should start from platform co-construction and data sharing to create a good ecosystem for insurance innovation,” Wei Lì believes. Products that explore dynamic data supplementation and flexible rate adjustments, as well as risk securitization, reinsurance, and co-insurance, can disperse underwriting risks and enhance capacity.

Technology insurance continues to expand coverage

Insuring robots is also a microcosm of the insurance industry’s service to high-level technological independence and the promotion of new productive forces: intelligent assisted driving is on the “fast lane,” many insurers have launched assisted driving protection services; the low-altitude economy and commercial space are poised to take off, with new insurance products like aerospace product liability and equipment damage compensation emerging…

“The ‘14th Five-Year’ Plan proposes establishing a policy system for science and technology insurance and enriching science and technology insurance products. ‘Science and technology insurance continues to expand coverage, initially forming a multi-layered insurance product system covering project initiation,成果转化, and industrialization promotion throughout the entire innovation cycle,’” said Zhao Yulong, president of the China Insurance Industry Association. Data shows that during the “14th Five-Year” period, science and technology insurance provided risk protection exceeding 10 trillion yuan.

The complex and variable risk structure of emerging and future industries, along with insufficient risk data, are challenges to high-quality development of science and technology insurance. How to continue breaking through?

Wei Lì believes that insurance institutions should accelerate the exploration of artificial intelligence and other technological applications, focusing on cultivating specialized talents and building dedicated agencies.

“Financial institutions, tech companies, and research institutes can co-build risk and insurance laboratories to improve accident mechanism analysis, scene assessment, and model validation capabilities,” said Wang Xiangnan, researcher at the Institute of Financial Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In claims processing, for scenarios with mature insurance conditions, automatic triggers, verification, and pre-claims payment mechanisms based on IoT data and rule engines can be promoted to improve service efficiency.

High-quality and efficient development of science and technology insurance also depends on a good policy environment.

“To reduce enterprises’ financial burdens and increase their willingness to insure, relevant policies such as premium subsidies for science and technology insurance products or tax incentives should be studied, and through fiscal, tax, and financial coordination, the use of fiscal funds can be maximized to better support technological innovation,” Wei Lì suggested.

People’s Daily ( April 3, 2026, Page 02 )