At the China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, which wrapped up on Sept 13, a robotic hand came equipped with an unusual accessory — an insurance policy.
The Y-Hand M2, which is designed to mimic the dexterity of a human hand, has added insurance to its working essentials. Its developer — Beijing-based Yue Quan Bionics Ltd — signed an insurance agreement with China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co's property and casualty arm during the event, providing coverage for the hand and any losses it may cause.
The idea is straightforward. "If an accident or natural disaster damages the hand while it is being used or stored, the policy provides coverage. It also covers losses caused by defects in design, installation or materials, or by operator error," said Zhou Ai, a staff member at the insurer's Beijing branch.
The protection reaches beyond the hand itself. It also includes injuries to third parties or damage to their property during use, Zhou said, adding that the product acts as an industry first for key components of embodied intelligent robots.
Behind the paperwork lies a familiar worry for anyone buying expensive high-tech equipment — what happens if it breaks? Especially with humanoid robots and other emerging forms of physical AI that carry out real-world interactions with humans, the concern also extends beyond the machine itself to the people and property around it.
In fact, insurers are beginning to offer answers, with coverage for individual components, rented machines and robots whose original warranties have expired.
When warranties expire
The problem begins with parts that wear out and warranties that run their course.
"The core precision components of intelligent robots wear relatively quickly (compared with other physical AI end products), while manufacturers' warranties are limited," said Chen Jian, head of the technology insurance subcenter at PICC Property and Casualty Co's Beijing branch.
"Once equipment is out of warranty, repairs and replacement parts are expensive, which to some extent constrains the industry's expansion and commercialization," Chen said.
Established last month, Beijing's intelligent robot insurance consortium is designed to address that gap. Gathering PICC's Beijing branch and several other insurers, its first policy focuses on equipment breakdowns after the manufacturer's original warranty expires, providing services including repair and replacement protection.
For a manufacturer, the arrangement can support an extended-warranty promise without leaving it to shoulder all the uncertainty over future repairs. For the customer, it helps address the cost of keeping the machine in service after the original guarantee has ended, Chen said.
"It helps robot manufacturers ease the financial pressure and operating risks of extended warranties, improve after-sales services and make their products more competitive," he said. "It also helps buyers using the robots allay maintenance concerns, lower the cost of trial applications and accelerate the deployment of robot technology in practical settings."
The account puts after-sales support at the center of the insurance proposition: manufacturers need to maintain what they sell, while customers need confidence that a malfunction will not leave them facing an unaffordable repair or replacement.
Insurance by the day
For businesses that need a robot for a particular assignment rather than a permanent addition to their operations, renting offers a way to put the technology to work without committing to a purchase. Insurance is thus beginning to accommodate that flexibility, with policies tailored to shorter engagements and machines that move between customers.
For example, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co's Jizhibao product, designed for commercial humanoid robot applications, allows customers to purchase coverage by the day, week or month, aligning the period of protection with the length of an assignment.
In another way, PICC has worked with robot rental platform Sharebot since December 2025 to offer coverage for damage to machines along with third-party liability, with no fixed operating address within the Chinese mainland mandated in the policy — a provision that accommodates robots moving between customers and venues.
The commercial opportunity is backed by substantial market performance. According to iiMedia Research, China's robot rental market stood at about 1 billion yuan ($149 million) in 2025 and is expected to top 10 billion yuan this year, representing an annual growth rate exceeding 900 percent. For rental operators serving this market, the economics of each booking depend partly on managing the repair bills and liability claims that an accident could bring.
The scale of coverage is already becoming visible at the platform level. Sharebot said that by April 24, more than 1,000 robots on its platform were insured, with aggregate cover exceeding 200 million yuan. According to domestic media reports, the platform purchased annual policies at premiums typically running to several thousand yuan per robot.
"Embodied robotics insurance is a prerequisite for a viable robot rental business model. It is more than a policy, but also an essential part of the industry's infrastructure, connecting insurers, robot manufacturers, service providers, partners and end customers," said Li Yiyan, CEO of the robot leasing platform. "For us, every robot on the platform must be covered by insurance and brought into our risk management system."
Pricing unfamiliar risk
Writing a policy requires an estimate of a loss that has not yet happened. For insurers entering robotics, there is relatively little past precedent to base assessments upon.
Guo Jinlong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Finance and Banking, pointed to the absence of a public risk database, which makes emerging risks difficult to quantify, while limited product standardization and high costs make it harder to match coverage to customers' needs.
"Moving from insuring individual machines on an ad hoc basis to covering batches of robots through rental arrangements can help insurers draw on data from actual use to overcome data barriers and fragmented demand," said Guo.
He added that by pooling data from rental platforms and operating environments, insurers and their partners can jointly develop models that better capture risk, supporting dynamic pricing and real-time risk management, which would help refine pricing methods that have traditionally relied on manufacturers' data and past experience.
Determining liability is another challenge, as responsibility can be difficult to untangle when developers, manufacturers, rental companies, users and algorithm providers are all involved, particularly in the absence of dedicated regulations and judicial precedents.
In this regard, a consortium could provide a framework for insurers to share risks and develop services jointly.
"It brings several insurers to a business that would otherwise place the burden of underwriting on a single company," Chen at PICC said.
The Beijing intelligent robot insurance consortium now extends to arranging repairs and replacements when equipment fails. By bringing financial protection and after-sales support together, Chen said, the shared approach helps address both the concentration of risk in extended-warranty business and the practical difficulties of delivering such coverage.
Building a lasting market
Government measures are beginning to address existing barriers from both sides of the insurance market, helping insurers build the data needed to assess and price risk while making coverage more affordable for the businesses buying it.
In March, four central government departments, including the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Financial Regulatory Administration, issued measures encouraging dedicated insurance for embodied intelligence. They called for model policy clauses, better data accumulation and differentiated pricing, as well as professional insurance pools in selected technology fields with substantial, insufficiently dispersed risks.
"It systematically answers whom to cover, what to cover and how," Guo said, adding that they also targeted the problem of fragmented policies by establishing coordination across departments.
Guo also highlighted provisions for insurers to share major risks and combine their underwriting capacity, as well as simpler, more affordable products intended to bring smaller technology companies into the insurance market.
In addition, local measures are reducing the cost of taking out coverage. Ningbo, Zhejiang province offers qualifying businesses subsidies of up to 80 percent of premiums for humanoid robot application insurance, capped at 2 million yuan. The policy took effect in July 2025 and runs through the end of 2027.
Elsewhere, Zhejiang's Hangzhou has an ordinance on embodied intelligent robotics, effective May 1, which encourages insurance products suited to the industry and market-based risk sharing across research, production, sales and application. Shanghai's technology insurance guidance also identifies humanoid robotics as a field for tailored protection.
"Driven by continued policy support and expanding industry demand, technology insurance is growing in scale, offering a wider range of products, developing a deeper supportive ecosystem and taking increasingly distinct regional forms," Guo said.
The effort is part of the nation's broader expansion in the protection of technological innovation, with policies reaching into research spending, the commercialization of new technologies and intellectual property.
Tian Lihui, director of Nankai University's institute of finance and development, expects the measures to change how that protection is delivered. Tian said he sees a shift from "passive claims settlement" to "active support", with insurers helping businesses manage and reduce risks before losses occur.
According to NFRA data, China's technology insurance sector provided about 8 trillion yuan in coverage in 2025, while premium income rose 44 percent from a year earlier, providing a solid ground for the policies now being written for robots and their components.
Tian also anticipates a move from "working alone" to "ecosystem collaboration", as insurance pools and shared data platforms help providers tackle pricing difficulties.
Looking forward, for a business putting a robot to work, those changes may be felt in practical ways: whether suitable cover is available, whether the premium is affordable and how efficiently a damaged machine can be assessed when a claim is made.
Editor：Zhou Jinmiao
