(Yicai) March 6 -- A deputy to the National People's Congress, China's parliament, urged the country to establish national intelligent driving data standards and set up a sharing platform as "infrastructure" to promote the high-quality development of the new energy vehicle insurance.

"The rapid development of smart driving technologies has made vehicle operation data the core basis for accident determination, risk pricing, and claims settlement," Zhou Yanfang, who is also director of the Strategy Research Center ESG Office at China Pacific Insurance, said at the NPC's annual meeting yesterday, which kicked off on the same day.

Financial regulators should take the lead in co-developing safety standards for smart driving with relevant industry parties and build a national-level intelligent driving and insurance data interaction platform from the source, she stressed. By breaking down information barriers between carmakers, insurers, and testing institutions, a trusted data loop covering the entire vehicle lifecycle can be formed, she added.

China should also make timely revisions to relevant laws and regulations, including the Road Traffic Safety Law and the Insurance Law, in line with the development of intelligent driving tech, Zhou said.

"The legal provisions related to traffic accident liability determination are not yet complete," she pointed out. "Without clear liability identification norms for different driving scenarios, it will be difficult to determine liability between humans and machines in scenarios involving intelligent driving."

The rules for identifying the liable party in traffic accidents under Level 3 and above intelligent driving modes should be clarified, establishing a liability division framework adapted to "human-machine co-driving," Zhou noted. In addition, she proposed studying the inclusion of drivers harmed by autonomous driving system failures within the coverage scope and improving the applicability rules of third-party liability insurance.

Zhou also recommended accelerating the formulation of technical specifications for the maintenance of NEV's "three-electric" systems (battery, motor, and electronic control), damage assessment standards, and environmental recycling guidelines for used parts, as well as setting up unified damage assessment standards and pricing bases to reduce disputes between insurers and repair shops during claims settlement, improving claims efficiency and transparency.

In addition, she suggested implementing differentiated product innovation and pricing guidelines, launching more refined product designs and pricing mechanisms. For example, the development of new insurance products incorporating intelligent driving, battery swap technology, vehicle-battery separation, and other factors should be promoted as soon as possible.

"Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, NEVs bring new characteristics in terms of risk structure, liable parties, and coverage boundaries, presenting new issues that need to be addressed for insurance product development, business model innovation, and risk management," Zhou stressed.

The challenges mainly come from traditional insurance being difficult to adapt to the risk characteristics of NEVs and the current legal framework and insurance product supply still having institutional gaps amid the increasing popularity of intelligent driving, she noted.

The number of NEVs in China topped 43.97 million units at the end of last year, making up 12 percent of all vehicles, according to data from the Ministry of Public Security. In addition, about 12.93 million new NEVs were registered in 2025, accounting for nearly half of new registrations.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev