American peer-to-peer car sharing company, Turo, has announced it plans to launch in British Columbia.
“Bringing Turo to B.C. has been in the works for many years and we’re excited to finally be in a position to safely introduce our trusted platform and community to the province,” said Cedric Mathieu, VP and head of Canada at Turo, in a statement.
Essentially, Turo lets people rent out their cars and make money. All transactions are handled on the web or in a mobile app. It’s like Airbnb for your car. Turo says on average, hosts earn $620 per month renting out vehicles in Canada.
“Make a dent in your monthly car payments — on average, Turo hosts can cover their payments by sharing their cars just nine days per month,” explains the Turo website.
Turo did not detail a B.C. launch date but did acknowledge it secured insurance coverage from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), after years of talks with the provincial government, to come up with coverage for both car owners and renters.
Its Canadian website currently states, “As a host, you’re covered by our CA$2 million insurance policy and we’ll be here to guide you every step of the way. Or bring your own commercial rental insurance and take a bigger piece of the pie.”
The fine print adds, “All owners outside Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and Nova Scotia must have commercial rental insurance for their customers. You waive coverage if you opt for owner-provided insurance.”
Intact and Belairdirect are listed as insurance providers for Canada as of writing.
In Vancouver, Turo looks to fill the void after car sharing service Car2Go–which had 200,000 cars listed–exited the city earlier this year, reports The Province. Other services still in Vancouver include the likes of Evo, Modo and Zipcar.
The company expanded to Canada back in April 2016 and currently has over 35,000 cars listed across Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Turo’s website and mobile apps support sign in with Apple, Google, and Facebook, on top of letting users create accounts with an email.
