Property Casualty 360 is reporting that like autonomous cars, autonomous boats have “moved past the drawing board” and into the test phase.

One example cited was the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research’s recent demonstration of autonomous unmanned boats guided by software, radar and other sensors with remote human supervision. Apparently, self-driving vessels have the potential to greatly cut costs for the global shipping industry by eliminating a crew and also much of the on-board infrastructure needed to support the crew, not to mention save on fuel costs.

And like autonomous cars, the insurance industry is struggling with risk assessment in terms of safety and reliability.

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