As your car share business grows, you wear a lot of hats: fleet manager, cleaner, and customer service. Insurance is easy to put off, especially if you assume your personal policy or the platform has you covered. Here’s how to tell whether your business needs commercial auto insurance.
Personal auto policies are written and priced for personal use. Many exclude cars made available for rent, sharing, or hire, and the NCOIL Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing Program Model Act, which many state car sharing laws are based on, lets insurers keep those exclusions.
Only during the trip. Under the same model law, platforms must tell owners that their coverage is in effect only during each car sharing period, and that the owner’s own insurance may not cover a shared car.
Turo, for example, says its plans only apply to trips booked on Turo. If your car is damaged when it’s not on a trip, Turo says you’d need to claim on your own insurance. For a full breakdown of how platform coverage works, read our guide to commercial car share insurance.
Platform coverage varies, so always check with your platform to understand exactly what's covered during bookings.
Your business is exposed whenever a listed car isn’t on a booked trip. Common examples include:
If your personal insurer excludes car sharing, or cancels your policy once it learns you host, you may have no coverage at all during these moments.
Your car share business needs commercial auto insurance if any of these apply to you:
You list a car on a car share platform, even part-time
You drive listed cars between trips to clean, service, deliver, or collect them
Your personal policy excludes cars made available for rent or sharing
You want to use a listed car for your own driving between trips
You’re adding cars and want one policy across your fleet
Yes. The risk is the same whether you list one car or 50. Until recently, off-trip commercial insurance was mostly built for large fleets, which left single-car hosts with few options. Off-Trip Car Share Insurance has no minimum fleet size, so you can insure one car, and fleet discounts start from two vehicles, with better prices as you scale.
Most hosts need off-trip commercial insurance, also called off-rental insurance. It covers the car whenever it isn’t on a booked trip, and sits alongside the platform’s trip coverage.
Off-Trip Car Share Insurance from INSHUR is commercial auto insurance for car share hosts. The platform covers the trip, and we cover the time in between.
What’s covered: the car while it’s parked or garaged, and while you drive it to the car wash, for detailing, to the mechanic, or on empty delivery runs.
Cover options: choose liability only, or liability plus physical damage cover for your own car.
Personal use: up to 50% of your off-trip mileage can be personal driving.
Mileage: a 250-mile monthly off-trip limit per car. Going over it, or over the 50% personal use limit, can lead to cancellation.
Tracking: each car needs an approved GPS tracker, connected within 60 days. Your coverage starts the day you sign and pay.
Platforms: works alongside platforms including Turo, TripCity, Mobi, and more
Yes, within limits. Off-Trip Car Share Insurance covers your car whenever it isn’t on a rental trip, up to 250 off-trip miles per car each month, and up to 125 of those miles can be personal driving.
Going over either limit can lead to your policy being canceled. So if you use the car as your daily driver, keep your personal auto policy. If you’re thinking about changing it, talk to us first so you don’t leave a gap.
Getting a quote for Off-Trip Car Share Insurance is quick and easy. Tell us a few details about you and your vehicles and get your quote. It takes less than 5 minutes!
Sources
Turo Inc. provides data access and platform connectivity only and is not an insurance carrier or agency. Off-rental policies are provided solely by INSHUR Inc.
INSHUR, Inc. is a program administrator and licensed U.S. insurance producer. All insurance policies are provided by unaffiliated insurance carriers and may only be available from surplus lines insurers. In California: INSHUR, Inc. (License #6012192). This article is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Coverage is subject to policy terms, conditions, and exclusions.