[jacquesm]

Why would I risk my 2 decades+ no claim discount on someone else renting my car?

Why would I let someone who I don't know drive the car I take good care of, possibly use it for illegal purposes or deal with the aftermath of fines and so on?

Really, that's a pretty bad idea.

[rsheridan6]

I agree on the second point, but then again, I'd never rent my house out with Airbnb either, and apparently they've done well. Different people have different tolerances for risk.

[antiterra]

I think a key difference with Airbnb is that you have to be pretty clever to run a red light or over a pedestrian with someone's condo.

[jrockway]

But less clever to turn it in to a meth lab.

[jacquesm]

I watched 'Up' the other day and I couldn't help but chuckle reading that. Pretty sure there were some major traffic and airspace violations going on there. It'd be harder still with a condo!

[atirip]

It's hard to impossible to damage your house by the renter so that the damage stays hidden. With car, it is pretty easy and the costs of such damages when you discover them afterwards would be realatively high.

[rsheridan6]

It might be riskier, but most of the time nothing's going to happen either way. And I'd rather have someone trash my car, if insurance covers it, than trash my house.

[mandeepj]

Your "no claim discount" will still remain valid incase the renter hits your car because you will using renting company's (flightcar\silvercar) insurance for filing claims. You are right with your other points.

The OP made up this stuff pretty badly - "There are the lines, the hassles, the constant upsells, confusion around cost of gas and insurance, and about 15 pages of paper that you have to sign before being able to pick out your car and leave the lot. " I have never experienced any of this.

Most of times I have used enterprise and few times hertz. Car choice is an issue when it is a long weekend otherwise not a problem at all. I use my own insurance because I know there is no point in using their's. If I can use an insurance for my own car then why should I get some other insurance for renting a car. I get cheap gas, free upgrades from enterprise.

[jacquesm]

You can't just be 'double insured', insurance is usually on the license, not on the driver. So if I put another driver in my car he/she can claim whatever they want, the law here is that the license owner is the one taking out insurance. By law, as soon as a vehicle is on public roads the owner of the car has to have mandatory insurance.

I'm not quite 100% clear on what the situation would be if someone else would be driving the car and they took out insurance to absolve me (and by extension my insurance) for liability, but I'm fairly sure that just driving around with my license plate will cause me to be the party addressed for any injuries/damage caused using that vehicle.

That's why license plate duplication is such a nasty thing, you end up having to prove that it wasn't you that caused the damage/fines/whatever.

And of course, if they do get into an accident and supposedly their insurance pays for the damage I will still find no car on my return from a trip as well as having to deal with the aftermath of the damage and having a car that was repaired after an accident, which may render it drivable but will significantly impact the book value.

Bad plan.

[mseebach]

> You can't just be 'double insured', insurance is usually on the license, not on the driver.

In the US, that's not the case - I'm not perfectly sure how it works, but you can often use your own car insurance when you're driving a rental. And of course double insurance is possible, it's entirely up to the insurance company. Insurance is obviously one of the things FlightCar would need to deal with.

All in all, the issues facing FlightCar are not much different from those facing AirBnB which despite similar objections is doing fine.

[jacquesm]

There is a huge difference between AirBnB and FlightCar: It's hard to steal a house, and it's hard to crash into someone else's house using your house.

AirBnB pushes a lot of the verification responsibilities onto the renter, I can't see how that would work in this case. Anybody that can't afford a regular rental is certainly not going to be able to afford the value I place on my time for the extra hassle that comes with the use of my car. And I care a lot more for my car than Hertz or Avis cares about theirs.

All this adds up to me probably not being in their target demographic on the supply side. And on the demand side I'd rather deal with Hertz, Avis or Budget (but never again with Sixt, what a bunch of scammers) when it comes to making sure damage is noted properly before pickup, having staff on site to deal with any issues with the car (not unknown to happen) and to know that there is a full operational support service behind the product in case I need assistance once underway. I've had an Avis car break down on me in the US, and the speed and professionalism with which this was dealt with left me very impressed.

And that for a price for which I as a private individual would be loathe to let another person unknown to me drive my car.

[rprasad]

The issues FlightCar faces are very different from those AirBNB faces.

For starters, auto insurance is mandatory in the U.S.; homeowner's insurance is not. Strict laws govern auto insurance coverage, liability, and claims. These laws vary by state. This means that accidents by a renter can affect no-claim policies in many states.

Second, as others have noted--cars are easy theft targets. Homes are not, and aside from a few high-dollar items like TVs or computers, neither are the contents of most homes. Assuming that FlightCar is able to find an insurer willing to cover this theft risk, the policy would start in the millions just for California-level coverage.

Finally, asset seizures are a far bigger problem with cars than with homes. A car used to transport drugs can be seized by the authorities and impounded. The laws are very generous to the authorities for drug-related asset seizures. For purposes of drug-related asset seizure laws, if a person is driving a car with permission of the owner (i.e., even as a rental), their actions are imputed to the owner for purposes of justifying seizure. (This maxim has been tested repeatedly in the courts.) In other words: if a renter transports drugs, gets caught, and your car gets seized, you're SOL. Insurers don't cover this at the personal level; even if they provide coverage to a business like FlightCar the policy would be prohibitively expensive.