All businesses will face increasingly new threats from all kinds of unexpected fronts. The most recent challenge to some of the leading automobile manufacturers, from the US and Japan, comes in the form of a lawsuit in the state of California. It holds them responsible for causing greenhouse effect. To what extent this will remain restricted to the car manufacturers and what are the possibilities of motor insurers getting dragged into the ring, needs to be seen.

A simple commodity product such as motor insurance may after a century plus of existence, suddenly assume a complex twist! This has nothing to do with the detariffication of the auto insurance in India. Events unfolding in the state of California could be providing just the trigger for a possible metamorphosis. This time around not a local variant but something with a cross-border implication.

Ten years ago, even to think of auto manufacturers facing a lawsuit holding them responsible for greenhouse effect was a little bit ahead of time. If the cigarette companies could be sued for negligence, how long could car producers avoid legal action for impairing overall environment and human health?

The fundamental problem with mankind's hundred plus year-old obsession (motor car) is that it is a mobile source of air pollution and the most difficult (not impossible) to pinpoint. They move across borders as well as in and out of given areas. These sources are difficult to track, and have been the origin of about half of the air pollution in the US. The pollution originates in both direct tail pipe emissions and in the mechanical wear of different parts of the vehicle.

Insurance Chronicle Magazine, Automobile Manufacturers, Auto Insurance, Commodity Products, Cross-border Implications, Tail Pipe Emissions, Global Warming, Greenhouse Effect, Volatile Organic Compounds, Environmental Protection Agency, US Manufacturing Facilities, Japanese Brands, Japanese Manufacturers.