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The Insurance Bureau of Canada says it welcomes the recommendations of the Québec government-initiated working group on the sharing economy (Groupe de travail sur l’économie collaborative).
The insurance body and its members said they are particularly backing the recommendation to enable and regulate property and casualty group insurance in Québec.
According to the IBC, a sharing economy platform being able to purchase a group insurance policy specifically to meet its users’ needs would make it possible to avoid gaps in coverage. It believes such gaps arise from the situation where policies purchased individually are generally based on people’s personal use of their property and can therefore exclude certain activities related to the sharing economy.
“Group insurance is a key part of the P&C insurance industry’s process for adapting to the sharing economy models we have seen appearing over the past few years,” said Johanne Lamanque, vice-president, IBC-Quebec. “It will even better protect consumers, so the work to establish it in Québec should resume without delay,” she added.
IBC floated the idea of a regulatory sandbox for the P&C insurance industry as a way to promote innovation, as it aims to evaluate new practices in a safe environment and establish the necessary legislative or regulatory changes to manage them.
“Consumers’ needs and habits are continually changing and we must be able to adapt just as quickly in order to always properly protect them. In this respect, insurance is essential to the sound development of the sharing economy,” IBC added.
