Foran Glennon Partner Michael Errera provided guidance and recommendations regarding the issues that confront insurers and insureds as a result of autonomous robot losses that occur in warehouse operations.
Robots are quickly becoming integrated into all facets of industrial and commercial operations – more than 500,000 robots are active in industrial settings, and more than 4.6 million robots are involved in a variety of operations around the globe. This trend of increased robot involvement in the economy yields substantial savings for insureds, but significant claims for property damage and business downtime also arise due to robot failures.
Michael participated in a roundtable discussion at the June 2026 Loss Executives Association (LEA) Spring Educational Conference along with representatives from Starr Insurance Companies, Sedgwick, and JS Held.
Due to the complex nature of losses involving autonomous robots and the significant costs that can quickly occur when operations are down, Michael detailed a variety of avenues that need to be quickly assessed for a potential recovery claim, including:
- Retaining properly qualified experts with experience in robotic engineering and analysis of coding,
- Exploring all potential sources of a recovery beyond just the robot manufacturer, including robot maintenance and repair vendors, operation and avoidance software, electrical charging stations, and fire detection and prevention systems,
- Obtaining timely receipt of contracts to permit completion of contractual analysis as soon as possible to verify whether subrogation claims are contractually barred or limited by a contract,
- Securing timely evidence from the scene and coordination of laboratory inspection of evidence to determine causation issues as soon as possible to minimize insured downtime and provide guidance on a return to safe robot operations.
Michael focuses his civil litigation practice on commercial, construction, product liability, transportation, subrogation, casualty litigation, and other insurance-related matters.
LEA was founded more than 95 years ago and provides an opportunity to discuss, study, and consider common loss adjustment issues to develop avenues for handling complex and evolving claims.