Briefing: Robotic repairs and drone delivery – the future of insurance is hardware

We really are moving into an era where the real world starts to resemble the sci-fi movies many of us remember. In this future, it’s probable that C-suites across the insurance market will be faced with opportunities, offers and decisions around hardware that move them into positions of intervention before, during and immediately after losses.

Could the future of insurance include a fleet of AI-powered hardware? Suspend disbelief and short-term commercial realism for a moment, and let’s explore some hypotheticals.

Focusing on the most accessible robotics markets in the UK and USA, there are a number of emerging propositions that could feasibly serve as part of a future risk hardware strategy for brokers and insurers.

First, the economics. Of course, the first wave of new-era robotics is going to be expensive. So the very first place insurance could start is investment and capital. You could see the investment and claims arms of an insurer aligning here to actively pursue enabling repair partners, owned or otherwise, having hardware that will reduce future claims costs. While risk migrates and controls evolve, a robot offers a different direct liability from a human. It may reduce some of the more distressing losses some sectors face.

Keeping things simple, with humanoid, wheeled and specialist automated hardware, you can already see the green shoots of choice emerging for the market.

In the humanoid robot space, many will be familiar with Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robots or Tesla’s Optimus. There’s also a US contender called NEO, made by 1X Technologies, whose latest model has influencers speculating about whether it has achieved the impressive feat of putting the motors for moving its hands and fingers in the wrist.

Whilst it still trudges along, the thing that catches the eye is its ability to be remotely piloted. Because the experience of being remotely piloted is also training, this enables its makers to improve how it performs tasks. This means it could be “jumped into” by anyone. Let’s say the hull of a ship needed inspecting. Or a factory needed a safety survey.

As for the claims process, there is https://thehumanoid.ai/?utm_source=chatgpt.com/, where industrial-grade robotics are already on the way. This UK startup has raised a whopping $152 million Series A at a $1.35 billion post-money valuation. Could claims inflation on vehicle, property and marine damage or repair claims be massively improved through their use? Owned repair networks could become robotic, even mobile.

Disaster zones where natural catastrophes have struck could also be incredibly impacted by insurer humanoid hardware going in more rapidly, or alongside loss assessment, and even beginning early remediation and mitigation work after first responders.

With NEO offering early access at a unit cost of $20,000, at least some of these designs should, within a decade, be readily affordable for the sector. It’s unclear if and when Optimus will be available and reasonably affordable. Regardless, lending a leasing or downstream claims-process company the money to acquire them could become a regular and smart move, especially where it mitigates peril and hazard.

Imagine if insurers had the capability to be “next” on site after first responders, recording incidents across fleet risks in a frictionless way. Loss adjusters could remotely pilot a workforce, with the data being used in real time to compress claims cadence. That’s cool.

Brokers can get involved too—perhaps owning the robotic layer and placing the correct capital and coverage around it for clients? There are possibilities for all in the sector.

Moving on to mobility and wheels, UK self-driving is also on its way via the progressive implementation of the Automated Vehicles Act. How long before a vehicle can head off to a factory with six robotic avatars, all loyally tethered to the human-controlled unit and learning the functions required? We’ve just impact-multiplied our robotic riskforce.

It’s also plausible that MIB’s levy could be used to fund a self-driving car powered by Oxa, autonomous software that has previously worked with AXA. MIB, through Operation Tutelage, has actively intervened to reduce uninsured driving. Why couldn’t it have vehicles loaded with real-time sensors to pick up driver behaviour data, speeding and uninsured analogue vehicles? This would, of course, be subject to data protection rights, laws and compliance.

Then, of course, there’s the more mundane day-to-day issue of road repair. A custom-made pothole repair robot by British startup Robotiz3d can help with that: https://www.robotiz3d.com/. Aviva cited the average pothole claim as £3,863. Whilst it’s unclear what this early-stage concept’s pricing is, even if you set it at a speculative £150,000 a unit, it could pay back by preventing fewer than 50 claims! Insurers could also contribute some of the funds by negotiating maintenance contracts with local government.

Delivery robots, such as those made by Starship Technologies, may look basic enough, but if you’re a health insurer covering a diabetic, or someone who has forgotten their EpiPen, then these kinds of capabilities are going to hugely benefit the future claims environment.

I’ve long wondered why life insurance companies aren’t directly funding the UK’s network of defibrillators. After all, preventing a death is not just morally laudable but, sadly for their class of business, economically sensible risk management. Now they don’t have to be nailed to a post. You could call a number and the defibrillator comes to you.

You may also have seen recently that ChatGPT was used to make a fluffy bird. It sits there listening for bird sounds and tells you which species you’re hearing. How lovely! Well, that may not seem insurancey, but what if it were a device listening for beeping horns, the sound of clashing car bumpers or brakes sliding? What if a planning application could be scuppered by the unknown presence of a rare species—and a device found it before too much time and money had been sunk? There are arcs of cover and wider risk management. If you wanted to make them look like a bird, all the better. I like robins.

But we’re not done there. No. Robotics will touch all the high and complex classes of insurance equally, from retail through catastrophe and into agriculture and cargo.

Reelables looks nailed on for cargo use cases, with smart labels that track cargo and inventory, transmitting location over Bluetooth or a network. It raised $10.4 million in November 2025. This kind of technology opens up a raft of tracking, parametric and unbundled insurance opportunities. It could be linked to on-location support if the insured items were perishable or needed maintenance in some way.

Then there is All3, the UK construction robot startup that has raised $25 million. On the surface, you wouldn’t think there was an instant win. But in the future, these AI-powered robots will have agentic handlers. Each unit will produce data, and that can be utilised agent-to-agent for real-time tweaks and notifications to insurance. Where a construction risk is presently priced holistically for the project, the risk could now be insured as it develops in real time. It gives the idea of embedded insurance an entirely new meaning.

Finally, we end with the grub. It is in agriculture—parched presently by a long, hot heatwave, or drought—that we have even more potential. Consider Fieldwork Robotics’ or Dogtooth Technologies’ fruit-picking robots. Perhaps “early ripening” could be an insured event, where an automated vehicle turns up with a fleet of additional power to pre-empt crop failure. Instead of just paying for the outcome, we’re there for the peril in real time.

These are just a few technologies that are emerging and giving future strategists tantalising glimpses of coverage, value-chain and claims-delivery options for the AI economy of the future. Keen eyes will note how I’ve cannily sidestepped issues of evidence standards, obsolescence, warranty and risk concentration. Don’t even get me started on the legal implications of “seeing” a circumstance that could lead to a claim, and a systemic bias towards future rejection. Those are issues for the POCs to bump into.

Either way, it is probable that insurance will become a hybrid force, everywhere via AI and in software form. It will be allocating capital in seconds, monitoring performance and mitigating risk with fleets of hardware solutions that transfer and change risk in ways we can only dream of.

An underwriter viewing a loss through a robot’s eyes, you say? Oh, go on then! Dream on.