Google now selling US car insurance

In the not-too-distant future, consumers will be able to buy a self-driving Google car and insure it without ever setting foot in a dealership or talking to a sales consultant.

The future of car buying is already changing as companies such as Tesla ditch the traditional showroom dealership for online purchasing — a trend many industry insiders predict will accelerate.

Now Google is showing an increased interest in lucrative automotive markets by cutting out the middleman and selling insurance policies in North America directly from its search engine.

Google Compare Auto Insurance Services has been operating in the UK since 2012 and a similar entity has now been licensed to sell car insurance in 26 US states, where it will sell policies on behalf of Midlife, Viking and four other insurance companies in California.

It's not clear if the company intends to establish its Google Compare car insurance service in Australia, but its US move is expected upset the status quo among established players in North America's large automotive insurance sector.

It signals a significant leap for yet another major industry via connected technology, giving motorists more options to find or change their insurance policies online and from their car.

Google makes a huge amount of revenue from advertising keywords in its search engine – even motoring.com.au uses it for promotion – and one of the most lucrative keywords is insurance.

In future it could become a one-stop online shop for everything automotive, including buying, selling, servicing, repairing and even upgrading cars as they become more reliant on software updates to fix problems.

Already a significant player in the automotive space with its Android Auto in-car connectivity platform, which rivals Apple's Carplay, Google is still working on readying its autonomous car for public consumption.

Leveraging its domination of the search engine market, Google could one day become another household automotive brand name as it continues to tap into new technologies in the automotive sector.