*By Hope King and Carlo Versano*
There is a future that some imagine in which no one owns a car or needs to learn how to drive ー because all (or at least most) cars will be shared and self-driving.
This is not necessarily the future that insurance giant Allstate sees, but if that end does materialize, the company has a plan.
"There may be a lot more commercial mileage that needs to be captured under a commercial contract," Allstate Business Insurance EVP Tom Troy said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar. "We plan to be a big player in that space."
Uber might have cars, bikes, buses, scooters, and who knows what else on its platform in the future. But regardless of how those vehicles are operated, the company will need insurance for its transportation fleets.
"We're going to take a careful and close look at that," Troy said while on the sidelines at Uber's safety product announcement event in New York.
"Insurance companies like Allstate need to take a hard look there and figure out a solution."
Troy's noncommital answer mirrors the approach Allstate has long taken to the ride-sharing craze ー one Troy admits is "wait-and-see."
The company began working with Uber in [March of this year](https://www.uber.com/newsroom/an-update-on-insurance/), insuring trips for Uber drivers as soon as they turn on the app to wait for a trip request. The policy is currently in effect in Illinois, New Jersey, and in parts of New York and Wisconsin.
But Uber is a nearly 10-year-old company, operating with three-million plus drivers. So why did it take Allstate so long to get on board?
"Early on, we were assessing whether or not being a commercial provider for an entity like Uber was a good idea," Troy said. Allstate was trying to assess how Uber's "model was going to mature."
Part of that approach was looking at feedback from users and assessing how Allstate's own policies would either affect or be impacted by Uber's own commercial product, he added.
"Uber is a very progressive company," Troy said. "A lot of our customers on the personal lines side also use Uber, so it's a real natural extension of the kind of safety that we provide."
Uber and Allstate announced a deepening of their partnership on Wednesday to make filing claims more instantaneous.
As for the relationship between two titans of industry, Troy said: "We've had an excellent start."
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
