Renting out your car on Turo

Hubo68

I'm thinking of renting out my car on Turo or Hiyacar. Post pandemic, with home working, and two days a week in the office, which I commute to on my bike, the car is standing idle on the drive most of the time. It seems a waste not to make some money from it. I'm struggling to find out about the insurance implications. Turo provide the insurance when the car is being rented out but which insurance company would insure a car for the rest of the time, knowing it was being rented out in this way. Does anyone have any experience of this? Does anyone know which insurance companies are amenable to the the car being hired out?

Grumpy_chap

This query might be better suited to the Motoring or Insurance boards.  Maybe worth asking a moderator to move it.

I can't comment on the services like Turo as a provider but have used the service as a hirer. 
From that perspective, I found a car that was fairly priced and suitable, but it was not really convenient as I selected a car that was not particularly near to home.  There were nearer cars available but the attraction of this one to hire was that the owner seemed to have the car as a business and use Turo as the marketing platform.  It was available to collect and drop off at convenient (i.e. long) times in the day.
Other cars nearer were either absurdly expensive (more than a regular hire car) or too obviously someone pride-and-joy or only available in restricted hours to collect.
It makes no sense to me to hire "Joshua's Juke" 2012 for more than I could  hire from Enterprise or such like and get a brand new car.
The other thing against using a privately owned pride-and-joy car where if I crash that I might have to deal with the owner's emotion, as opposed to an Enterprise hire car where the depot staff will be entirely dispassionate about it and just deal as a business concern.
"Nina's Note" was available, but listed for collection after school run and before 3 or after 6 and before 9 in the evening.  Very restrictive.

So, for a user, the Turo car needs to be local, available, cheaper than an equivalent from a regular car hire firm and not loaded with pride-and-joy emotion.

Hope that helps

Hubo68 said:

I'm thinking of renting out my car on Turo or Hiyacar. Post pandemic, with home working, and two days a week in the office, which I commute to on my bike, the car is standing idle on the drive most of the time. It seems a waste not to make some money from it. I'm struggling to find out about the insurance implications. Turo provide the insurance when the car is being rented out but which insurance company would insure a car for the rest of the time, knowing it was being rented out in this way. Does anyone have any experience of this? Does anyone know which insurance companies are amenable to the the car being hired out?

DullGreyGuy

Hubo68 said:
I'm struggling to find out about the insurance implications. Turo provide the insurance when the car is being rented out but which insurance company would insure a car for the rest of the time, knowing it was being rented out in this way. Does anyone have any experience of this? Does anyone know which insurance companies are amenable to the the car being hired out?

It will be the same as any secondary insurance, if everything goes to plan (beyond the person having an accident) then the Turo policy will deal with the damages to your car and any liability to a third party. The driver would give the Turo insurance details and nothing would be heard about it again in the future. 

If things don't go to plan then it gets messy... if the hirer does a hit and run then a MID check will bring back your insurance not the Turo policy and then you have difficult conversations with your insurers but ultimately it should be passed on to Turo's insurers and ultimately resolved. 

If things go badly wrong and the Turo insurance is for some reason invalid then your insurers are still RTA insurers of the vehicle and therefore would have to settle any third party claim (no cover for damage to your car). As the driver isn't covered by your policy and you have allowed them to drive the car then your insurers will be entitled to recover all they've paid out to the third party (and allocated costs for defending the claim) from either you or the driver. 

Unfortunately there is no sight of the policy wording on their site and so no idea if drink driving or other typical exclusions apply (and hence an RTA Insurer risk) or not. 

Grumpy_chap

DullGreyGuy said:

Unfortunately there is no sight of the policy wording on their site

I don't know what they offer by way of cover for the car owner, but for the hirer there is a compulsory insurance added to the cost of hire.  IIRC, there were three levels of cover (waiver) available and I took the cheapest which was, I think, £10 with a £1k or £2k excess - quite high TBH.  Maybe the Turo cover the vehicle owner in the event of an incident so that they are covered regardless?

It is also worth the prospective car owner listing understanding what the total cost is to the hirer. 
I took a car that was £33 per day.  My actual cost to hire once everything was added was £47.40 (plus petrol).  None of the "extras" were optional.
I think that may be why some of the cars were more expensive than Hertz equivalents.  Owners list a car cheaper than the regular car hire companies but may not be aware of the actual cost to hire once the "extras" are added on.
I assume the car owner does not get all the headline price either - so that is another thing for a prospective vehicle owner to consider before listing their car.  Of £33 per day for the car I hired, the owner probably only got 1/2 to 2/3 of that?

DullGreyGuy

Grumpy_chap said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Unfortunately there is no sight of the policy wording on their site

I don't know what they offer by way of cover for the car owner, but for the hirer there is a compulsory insurance added to the cost of hire. 

Its the same TP insurance as the hirer gets, for own vehicle cover they have a choice of an excess or not which is paid for by a sacrifice in the rate charged.

It's the TP element that would always be of big concern to me given it's an unlimited liability and could be transferred to you if, for example, the Turo insurance states it won't cover accidents where the driver is drunk or under the influence of drugs.