Economic Observer reporter Zheng Chenye

On April 17, 2026, China People's Insurance Company Limited (hereinafter referred to as "PICC") completed a claim of 5976 yuan.

The accident occurred with a embodied intelligent robot, which accidentally overturned during use, resulting in damage to the main camera and components. The insurer, PICC Property and Casualty Insurance, completes the loss assessment based on the maintenance quotation list provided by the robot host factory and completes the compensation according to the insurance contract. The Economic Observer learned from the People's Insurance Company of China that this is the first insurance claim case involving embodied intelligent robots in China.

As a type of insurance, embodied intelligent robot insurance has been launched by insurance companies as early as 2025. Relevant product registrations have been gradually implemented and underwriting actions have been initiated. However, this is the first order to reach the stage of claims settlement.

The accident robot is from Qingtian Rent (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qingtian Rent"). As a robot rental platform, its business is to lease embodied intelligent robots to customers in commercial scenarios such as shopping malls, stages, exhibitions, and cultural tourism. It does not own robot assets and operates nationwide through a partnership system. In just over a year, more than a thousand robots have completed insurance coverage on the platform, with a total insured amount of over 200 million yuan, mainly underwritten by People's Insurance Company of China (PICC).

Every robot entering the platform must purchase insurance, without exception, "Li Yiyan, CEO of Qingtian Rental, told Economic Observer reporters. When cars first appeared, car insurance was also very weak. Now, without car insurance, robots cannot go on the same path, and insurance is a prerequisite for the robot rental business.

How was the claim for 5976 yuan calculated

After a robot is in danger, the first step is to assess the damage.

In traditional equipment insurance, there are ready-made paths for loss assessment, insurance companies have their own loss assessors, the industry has third-party assessment agencies, and there are fair market quotes for parts and maintenance services. For example, in the event of a car accident, there is a mature communication process between the claims adjuster at the 4S dealership and the insurance company; The factory equipment is broken, and there are also evaluation reports issued by industry experts and appraisal agencies as a basis.

But for robot insurance, there is currently no mature supporting system like the one mentioned above. The reason is also simple: embodied intelligent robots have not been in the commercial scene for long, and the product itself is still undergoing continuous iteration.

There is no specialized third-party evaluation agency for robots on the market, nor is there an independent repair network. The cost of repairing a broken camera, loose joints, or burned module of a robot cannot be determined by external personnel, only the main robot manufacturer knows.

The person in charge of the relevant business of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance also stated in response to an interview with the Economic Observer that there is currently a lack of third-party evaluation agencies and maintenance networks for embodied intelligent robots in the market. The insured party's approach to this is to sign a cooperation agreement with the robot host factory, and the host factory will provide a maintenance quotation list. The insurance company will complete the loss assessment based on the contents of the list.

The first insurance claim for embodied intelligent robots in China, with a claim amount of 5976 yuan, was determined as follows: after the robot collided or overturned, the main camera and components were damaged. The host factory issued a repair quotation list according to its own pricing system, and the insurance company verified the amount based on the insurance liability stipulated in the contract and completed the compensation.

According to the People's Insurance Company of China, after this first claim, several claims have been made under the same insurance type, with the lowest amount being over 400 yuan. Currently, the cumulative amount of the first batch of claims has exceeded 10000 yuan.

Of course, the entire process still needs to start from the insured reporting the case. When the insured reports a case, they need to provide the policy number, robot serial number, time and location of the accident, and the approximate course of the accident. After reporting the case, the claims specialist of the insurance company will contact the reporting party in a short period of time, informing them of the materials that need to be prepared and the follow-up precautions.

Subsequently, on-site or remote inspections will be conducted, including filming of damaged areas, recording of accident scenes, and securing evidence. The loss assessment process is jointly completed by the insurance company and the after-sales point designated by the host factory, and the amount is determined according to the maintenance plan provided by the host factory. Finally, after all the documents are complete, the insurance company will complete the compensation payment within the agreed working days.

According to the insurance terms obtained by the Economic Observer reporter, the current insurance for embodied intelligent robots can be divided into two parts - body loss insurance and third-party liability insurance.

Among them, the ontology loss insurance covers the losses suffered by the robot during its use. The scope of insurance coverage includes accidental collisions, overturning, and falling of robots during operation, parking, and running, as well as damage caused by user error or improper use, and equipment loss caused by electrical faults such as overload and short circuit.

In addition, the ontology loss insurance also covers network security incidents, including robot system failures or data damage caused by malicious software or attacks, hacker behavior, denial of service attacks, illegal use or access, etc. This is a new risk that only robots as networked intelligent devices need to cover, which does not exist in traditional equipment insurance.

Third party liability insurance is designed for situations where the robot accidentally causes personal injury or property damage to third parties during use, and is compensated according to the insured amount and deductible terms stipulated in the contract. There are currently several levels of coverage to choose from, the common ones being 100000 yuan, 300000 yuan, and 500000 yuan.

According to the introduction of the person in charge of the relevant business of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance, compared with traditional property insurance and equipment insurance, there are two significant differences in insurance products for embodied intelligent robots.

One is the scope of protection. Traditional property insurance and equipment insurance generally only cover the loss of the equipment itself, covering a single dimension of risk. Robot insurance, on the other hand, combines both the loss of the equipment itself and third-party liability into one product. This is because robots are different from traditional fixed devices. They can move, move in crowds, and actively interact with the environment. The form of accidents is not only self destruction, but also the possibility of hitting people or objects. A single coverage cannot cover this composite risk.

The second is to use the address. Traditional property insurance and equipment insurance require clear information about the storage and usage location of the equipment when purchasing, but robot insurance does not specify a specific usage address. As long as it is used within the country (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), it can be insured.

The clause of not agreeing to use an address may seem insignificant, but it is crucial for the robot rental industry. Because of a rented robot, it may be used as a guide in a shopping mall in Shanghai today, performing on a stage in Hangzhou tomorrow, and being sent to an exhibition in Xiamen as a welcome guest next week. If the use address is locked in the insurance contract, the robot will have to go through the approval process every time it changes venues, and the leasing business cannot continue.

Not specifying an address is equivalent to removing the robot from the insurance framework of "fixed assets" and redesigning the protection method according to "current assets".

This also directly determines which link the embodied intelligent robot insurance will start from - leasing platforms have already started to scale up ahead of other insured entities.

Converge the situation of multiple parties arguing into one policy

The current insured entities of robot insurance are mainly robot host factories and robot rental platforms.

A host factory refers to a complete machine manufacturer that produces and sells embodied intelligent robots, including Zhiyuan, Yushu, and Ubiquitous. After obtaining the robots, the robot rental platform does not operate them on the front line, but distributes them to various parts of the country through a partner system - partners are the front-line operators who join the platform, responsible for receiving orders, connecting with shopping malls and stages, and executing robot performances and displays.

Under the leasing model, it is currently the mainstream practice for the leasing platform to purchase insurance uniformly. For example, the leasing platform purchases insurance for the robots it manages in batches on an annual basis. All actions related to insurance, renewal, and claims are handled by the platform, and partners and end customers do not need to deal with the insurance company themselves.

This model is convenient for both insurance companies and leasing platforms - insurance companies face a unified corporate customer with lower management costs; Leasing platforms can package insurance costs into partners' service packages, which adds a layer of protection to the entire business chain.

Qingtian Rent is currently one of the largest insurance platforms in the field of embodied intelligent robots. Li Yiyan told reporters that over a thousand robots on the Qingtian rental platform have completed insurance coverage, with a total insured amount exceeding 200 million yuan; The insurance action is carried out uniformly on an annual basis, and all franchise partners have already included the insurance cost when paying the service package fee.

The internal requirement of the company is that every robot must purchase insurance, which is a rule that should be established before the robot rental platform enters the commercial scene. Li Yiyan said that the background of this rule is that robots have already had many accidents in offline scenarios.

An easily overlooked fact is that robots are essentially metal devices that weigh tens of kilograms and have joints that can move at high speeds.

In the robotics industry, industrial robotic arms have been in use for decades, and safety regulations around robotic arms are very strict - no personnel are allowed to enter the working range of the robotic arm in the factory, or safety fences, light barriers, and emergency stop systems are used to rigidly isolate people and equipment. In addition, in recent years, the reason why the collaborative robotic arm category has been able to be separated is that the core breakthrough lies in incorporating safety capabilities such as force control, collision detection, and power limitation into the equipment itself. On this basis, workers can stand on the same production line as machines.

In contrast, embodied intelligent robots (represented by humanoid robots) enter shopping malls, stages, and exhibitions and face more complex scenarios than robotic arms - surrounded by untrained ordinary people, children, tourists taking photos, and various unexpected situations.

Or in other words, the safety design of embodied intelligent robots is still evolving, and the external environment they operate in is often uncontrollable. Accidents occurring at this stage are almost inevitable.

Li Yiyan told a reporter from the Economic Observer about two accidents he personally experienced: one occurred during a display event in a shopping mall - the area where the robot was located was a tiled floor. The robot slipped under its feet during movement, lost control, and rushed forward all the way into a store in the mall, shattering the glass at the entrance of the store and injuring someone's arm at the scene; Another incident occurred during a stage performance - the operator made a mistake and the robot kicked the LED screen, shattering it.

Both accidents were not performance issues with the robots. The first issue is the site environment, where the friction of the tile floor is insufficient; The second issue is a personnel operation problem, where the operator's instructions deviated. But the problem is, if an accident occurs, someone has to take responsibility.

At that time, everyone was in a rather ridiculous state, "Li Yiyan said. The venue, such as a shopping mall, feels irresponsible because the event is organized by someone else and the venue is only rented out; The organizers of the event also feel aggrieved because the robots belong to someone else, the operators are also assigned by someone else, and they are just the organizers; The frontline partner responsible for specific execution also feels wronged because they were only following the process to present and did not neglect their duties; The host factory feels that they have nothing to do with the accident - the equipment they produce has no performance issues.

Both of these accidents were ultimately resolved by the event organizers, robot rental service providers, and robot host factories through joint sharing by two or three parties.

This approach is common in the absence of insurance intervention, where no party can completely shirk responsibility and no party is willing to bear it alone. The ultimate result is compromise and negotiation.

After the mandatory insurance coverage of the robot rental platform, these losses that were originally discussed among several parties finally have a clear interface of responsibility - after the accident, the robot rental platform represents the policyholder to report to the insurance company, and the losses are handled by the insurance company according to the insurance liability stipulated in the contract. "The original situation of three parties arguing has converged into one policy.

At the same time, the intervention of insurance is also a reverse drive for the development of the robotics industry. In the past, robot manufacturers sold equipment more like a one-time deal - after customers bought the robot, if there were any problems during use, they would basically handle them themselves or coordinate with the manufacturer point-to-point. There was no standardized system for repair services in the industry, and there was no unified pricing for components externally. When repairs were needed, the manufacturer would quote as much as possible.

But after the large-scale intervention of insurance, the situation changed. If an insurance company wants to assess losses, it must have a supplier after-sales channel that can be connected to; To determine the amount, there must be a maintenance quotation list that can be referenced. These requirements in turn drive robot manufacturers to establish a standardized after-sales system, including designated repair points, repair price lists, component pricing systems, and so on.

This is a link in the robotics industry that has not been systematically built in the past few years, and the intervention of insurance has in turn made it operational.

At the same time, the accumulation of data is also being promoted. Every insurance loss assessment requires recording information such as the accident process, damaged area, and repair plan. This information used to be scattered across various usage sites: a robot knocked on a shopping mall and the service provider handled it themselves, leaving no data traces; Another robot encountered an issue on stage, and the organizers privately negotiated with the service provider to settle the account without accessing any data systems.

But now, due to the existence of the claims process, these accident information are systematically recorded and collected in the hands of leasing platforms and host factories.

Li Yiyan told reporters an example of an "emergency stop button": The emergency stop button on the neck of a robot was originally designed for safety. According to the original design concept of the robot manufacturer, the emergency stop button was placed at the neck position, highlighted in red, so that in case of any situation, the user could press it immediately. This design is not a problem in the laboratory, but it becomes an unexpected pain point in real-life scenarios - for example, some people accidentally touch it while taking photos, and the robot collapses with a snap; Some children saw the red button and pressed it out of curiosity, causing the robot to collapse again.

This kind of situation repeatedly occurs. At first, no one specifically counted it, but in the customer service system of Qingtian Rent, such feedback gradually increased. After summarizing these feedbacks to the relevant host factories, the host factories adjusted the position of the emergency stop button on the new generation of humanoid robots, making the new position more concealed and less prone to accidental triggering.

This kind of question can never be answered in the laboratory, "said Li Yiyan." Only through the use of a large number of real-life scenarios can it be exposed

The insurance process has transformed feedback in such scenarios from scattered to standardized. Accidents are no longer just about 'going out as soon as they happen', every incident must leave behind materials and become data. These data flow directly to the host factory for product iteration; One end flows to the insurance company to adjust the experience of underwriting and claims.

The significance of insurance for the robotics industry goes beyond that.

In Li Yiyan's view, embodied intelligent insurance is a prerequisite for the establishment of the robot leasing business. In the past, when robots entered shopping malls, stages, and exhibitions, the biggest concern for the venue and event organizers was not the price, but the lack of compensation in case of any accidents. Robots can be rented for thousands of yuan per day, but in the event of an accident, the compensation amount may be tens or even hundreds of times the rent. When there is no insurance, the entry threshold for these scenarios is vague, and one can enter, but the risk is borne by oneself.

But after the insurance is implemented, the leasing platform can make a clear commitment to partners and customers - the robot will be covered by insurance in case of an accident, partners do not have to bear it themselves, and customers do not have to worry about being involved in the event of an accident - only then can partners dare to take orders and customers dare to place orders.

Li Yiyan emphasized that when cars first appeared, car insurance was also very weak, and now without car insurance, one cannot go on the road; Whether insurance can keep up with robots entering the market is the same issue. The ability of cars to hit the road on a large scale is the same process as the mandatory implementation of car insurance; The commercialization of embodied intelligent robots is also on the same path.

It is gratifying that currently, robot insurance is moving forward synchronously in both policy and product aspects.

On February 23, 2026, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Administration of Financial Supervision, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the China National Intellectual Property Administration jointly issued the Several Opinions on Accelerating the High quality Development of Science and Technology Insurance to Strongly Support the Self reliance of High level Science and Technology. In the section of "Accelerating the Innovation of Science and Technology Insurance Products and Services", it was clearly stated that in the key fields of science and technology and industrial development, such as artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, quantum technology, biological manufacturing, hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion energy, brain computer interface, and physical intelligence, we should encourage the development of science and technology insurance exclusive products and explore the establishment of a special risk reserve system.

The actions at the local level are more direct, with Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Ningbo, Xiamen, Shenzhen Longgang and other places successively introducing premium subsidy policies for robot insurance. The subsidy intensity ranges from 50% to 80%, and the subsidy ceiling ranges from 200000 yuan per transaction to 2 million yuan per household per year.

But even with policy encouragement, insurers still define this business as the 'initial stage'.

The person in charge of the relevant business of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance mentioned to the Economic Observer that although the overall operation of robot insurance business is stable, more underwriting and claims data is still needed in the initial stage of product implementation to support the continuous optimization of the product pricing system. The pricing of insurance premiums is currently mainly determined based on basic factors such as the purchase value, application scenarios, and risk conditions of robots, combined with industry risk levels.

This first claim of 5976 yuan, along with policies for over a thousand robots, is just the beginning of data accumulation for this mechanism. Robot insurance still has a long way to go.