In fact, I would expect them to offer own insurance directly in the near future, for several reasons. First, insurance is one of the big practical hurdles facing their self-driving cars – in an accident, who is at fault? By offering their own product they can potentially circumvent this hurdle. Second, if they begin to offer homeowners insurance, they can tie their rates directly to Nest data, which should allow them to offer more competitive rates and more accurate pricing, similar to what Progressive has done with Snapshot [0]. And lastly, this obviously gives Google access to more, and potentially better, personal data.
In fact, I would expect them to offer own insurance directly in the near future, for several reasons. First, insurance is one of the big practical hurdles facing their self-driving cars – in an accident, who is at fault? By offering their own product they can potentially circumvent this hurdle. Second, if they begin to offer homeowners insurance, they can tie their rates directly to Nest data, which should allow them to offer more competitive rates and more accurate pricing, similar to what Progressive has done with Snapshot [0]. And lastly, this obviously gives Google access to more, and potentially better, personal data.
[0] http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/