Self-Driving Cars Will Boost Insurers’ Profitability, BofA Says

The shift to autonomous vehicles represents a great unknown for the auto insurance industry, but to analysts at Bank of America Corp. it will be a potential goldmine.

Investors are concerned about liability when driverless cars become more mainstream. Under the current US system, the driver is responsible in the event of an accident. But with autonomous vehicles there is no driver, so liability will have to shift from personal to commercial carriers.

That could remove one of the “impediments to insurer profitability,” BofA analysts led by Joshua Shanker wrote in a note to clients Thursday. Auto insurers typically lose ...