The editors of Carrier Management wondered about insurance questions surrounding one of the sharing economy innovations described in Dennis Chookaszian’s accompanying article—the car sharing platform Turo.

Do car owners or travelers buy special insurance when they sign up to use Turo?

We found these answers for the U.S. and Canada on Turo’s website, where more details are available.

Renters:

• Turo does not require renters to have their own personal insurance coverage.
• If the renter has insurance, liability insurance offered via Turo will supplement existing coverage.
• Alternatively, some owners on Turo opt to decline a Turo protection package if they are able to offer commercial rental insurance directly to travelers. Travelers who rent those vehicles are subject to the owner’s commercial insurance policy instead and waive Turo’s protection.
• Turo offers two packages with supplemental physical damage protection, so that after your personal insurance coverage is exhausted, your out-of-pocket exposure can be limited to $500 or $3,000, depending on the option you select.

Owners/Hosts:

• Under a partnership with Liberty Mutual, hosts can have $1 million in liability insurance and physical damage protection in the United States. (Intact Financial provides coverage in Canada.)
• The hosts’ personal insurance policies aren’t impacted for accidents that happen during Turo transactions. Instead, the Liberty Mutual liability coverage protects hosts from being liable for incidents that are completely out of their control (with coverage higher than state-mandated minimum insurance requirements).

Editor’s Note: Liberty Mutual’s venture arm is one of a number of investors that backed a new $92 million funding round for Turo in September.

Source: Turo website: Turo Insurance Update, June 3, 2017 and https://turo.com/insurance