Uber has been making strides to become more widely accepted in Canada, as evidenced by Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard announcing that he hopes to pass new regulations that will legalize the service and legitimize the province’s “new sharing economy.”
Despite this move towards accountability, critics still highlight UberX’s deficient commercial coverage, and question whether a regulated Uber could operate within the bounds of insurance law. Jonathan Kay, editor of The Walrus, has discovered a new obstacle to the ride-sharing service achieving that goal.
In an undercover investigation called “Uber vs. Taxi,” Kay underwent two sets of professional training, one to become a taxi driver and one to become an UberX driver. Unsurprisingly to many Canadian brokers, Uber’s entailed a much higher degree of risk.
UberX, which he describes as the service “everybody uses because it’s the cheapest,” merely required its drivers to watch a 16-minute video and submit some paperwork online.
The Toronto taxi industry, on the other hand, mandated its vehicle operators complete an 18-day course, taught by instructors with the expectation that pupils “learn a whole body of material,” including city and regional bylaws.
Some brokers have advocated that Uber drivers obtain a “Permission to Carry Paying Passengers Endorsement” or related commercial policy. But any disparity in driver training will likely to be reflected in premium costs should the industry ever be called upon to price out fleet coverage for UberX’s growing mass of driver-partners.
“I can tell you from experience that public vehicles experience collisions with a lot more frequency, have a lot more injuries, especially when considering incidences involving pedestrians and cyclists as a by-product of congested routes in the city,” said Philomena Comerford, president and CEO, Baird MacGregor Insurance Brokers, in a previous interview with Insurance Business. “It’s a huge public risk issue.”
Instead of developing a solution around Uber’s rule-breaking business model, though, Comerford says that the service should first align itself with the law, and then insurers can work to accommodate it.
“I don’t understand why we’re leaping to find a solution to a model that is completely unregulated,” she said. “Once Uber has some regulatory oversight, then we can get to a point where we find correct insurance solutions and engage in proper risk management.”
