New insurance rules a personal challenge to all Uber drivers

Aviva has introduced a new insurance product for ridesharing programs. But we're predicting most drivers won't even bother

A prediction, and a challenge.

As promised, Aviva Canada, one of Canada’s largest insurers, now has a plan in place for ridesharing programs in Ontario, and are currently with regulators in other key markets, such as Alberta, Quebec and the Maritimes. They don’t call it the Uber plan, but it’s the Uber plan. While acknowledging they want no part of ongoing legal gymnastics taking place over the legality of Uber in centres across Canada (Uber is not legal in most centres across Canada), they do want to make sure their customers are protected should they sign up to drive for a ridesharing program.

The goal is to cover the gap between personal car insurance policies and commercial ones; once you drive your vehicle for money, like picking up people and driving them around, you have left the realm of using your vehicle for personal reasons and your insurance changes. Prospective Uber drivers were finding if they called their personal insurance company to inquire about securing the proper coverage, they faced one of two usual outcomes: commercial rates that dwarfed their personal ones, or a cancelled policy. Most prospective Uber drivers then did what human nature would dictate they would do: they stopped calling their insurance companies to ask about securing proper coverage.

Uber, the world’s largest (and still mostly illegal in most jurisdictions) rideshare program set up shop and quickly dominated the market with their ease of use: you have an app on your phone that delivers an Uber driver to your location fast, and frequently gets you to your destination cheaper than a traditional cab would. They also have things like surge pricing, which is just what it sounds like: prices surge if demand is high, and there are a lot of New Year’s Eve horror stories out there. People have wrongly pitted this as a taxi vs. Uber fight, when in reality it is an Uber vs. the law fight. If riders think the current taxi industry in their area is unreliable or costly or smelly, the answer is not to hop into an unregulated, uninsured, illegal ride. Taxis should get better; Ubers should get legal.

Uber has never much cared if it played by the rules or not, and it hasn’t. Taxis are revolting everywhere (insert Monty Python line here) because their long-held monopoly on the industry has been shattered, legally or not. Uber and the threat of Uber has municipalities scrambling to decide if they should make it legal so as to protect their constituents and piss off the local cab industry, or outlaw it and watch people do it anyway.  

An Uber driver sits in his car parked near the San Francisco International Airport parking area in San Francisco, Wednesday, July 15, 2015.
Jeff Chiu, THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP

Currently, nearly every Uber car you get into is riding without insurance. The driver may think he or she has coverage because their provider is unaware they are driving for a rideshare program. Testing that theory will take exactly one collision, when that information will come to light and the insurance provider will in all probability void the policy.

Aviva has offered up a good product. Drivers must have at least six years of a clean driving record and drive no more than 20 hours a week for a rideshare program to be able to secure full gap coverage for as little as $500 to $600 annually on top of their regular policy rate. Those are the broad strokes. One broker I spoke with recently wrote a policy in the Toronto area where the surcharge was $1,000; another was $1,600. Like all insurance, that rate will be predicated on your driving record. That 20 hours a week will be taken at your word, unless you have a crash or claim and they take a boo at your Uber records just to confirm it. The fabulous technology that makes Uber so much fun will also bite you in the butt if you lie.

Aviva Canada’s senior manager of public relations, Glenn Cooper, is blunt. “If you live in a high-density area where insurance rates are already high, and your driving record isn’t good, you might want to rethink rideshare driving as a career.”