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Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

cuvva.co

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Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#21

Post by scott00 »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #11

Hey. I built Cuvva. Exciting to see it posted on HN, causing a lot of traffic to our site! Cuvva is currently UK-only. Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties. With Cuvva, it's a full comprehensive policy. This is not typically relevant for the US. However we are interested in the potential for other products which might work in the US.

I think coverage by the mile or the hour for primary drivers would be of interest to a lot of car owners in US urban areas. An existing player, Metro Mile, markets their product as pay-per-mile, but the majority of the cost actually comes from a fixed per-month fee. Of course that might be because what I want makes no actuarial sense...

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#22

Post by petercooper »

amelius wrote: post #20

Could be useful. But... I'm wondering why this is tech news. Is now every service, but done on a computer, suddenly tech news? (If so, then I predict this will become a boring place, because there are a gazillion services out there that can be computerized.)

Is now every service, but done on a computer, suddenly tech news?

If you look at the "tech" news media nowadays, basically yes. GroupOn launching a food delivery service or a fashion site launching an app is apparently "tech" news now.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#23

Post by cmdrfred »

chrisseaton wrote: post #13
Retric wrote: post #6

This is only really useful in the UK not the US. In most states, comprehensive and collision coverage protects your vehicle regardless of who's driving it. https://www.esurance.com/info/car/myth-car-insurance-follows... Note: There are several edge cases, but it's generally not an issue especially if the person borrowing the car has their own insurance for their own car.

What stops someone who is cheap to insure (like a retired person) taking out the insurance policy, then someone who is very expensive to insure (like someone with drink driving convictions) actually using the car all the time?

Car insurance in the US is quite odd when you think about it. It's mandatory and if you don't live in a city so is a car so defacto you need to buy it. On top of that that doesn't actually cover your car! At the minimum level only cars you damage are covered so if you get hit by someone without insurance they are covered, you are not. Huge amounts of regulatory capture are involved and in my state (PA) it's almost impossible for someone to start their own car insurance company. I see plenty of room for disruption there.

"In America you can buy a car for hundred dollars, but it costs a thousand to insure it" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMHdGBz2AqI

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#24

Post by thecosas »

amelius wrote: post #20

Could be useful. But... I'm wondering why this is tech news. Is now every service, but done on a computer, suddenly tech news? (If so, then I predict this will become a boring place, because there are a gazillion services out there that can be computerized.)

Come on; just because it's not tech news, it doesn't belong here?

Some of the best links I've seen on HN have either little to do with tech or show tech implemented in an interesting way.

The argument could be made that if HN was strictly code, frameworks, dev, etc. it would be a more boring place.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#25

Post by rahimnathwani »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #11

Hey. I built Cuvva. Exciting to see it posted on HN, causing a lot of traffic to our site! Cuvva is currently UK-only. Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties. With Cuvva, it's a full comprehensive policy. This is not typically relevant for the US. However we are interested in the potential for other products which might work in the US.

"Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties."

Even that assumes you have an insurance policy for your own car. If you don't, and you are not listed as a driver on your friend's policy, you would have no third party insurance coverage and therefore would be driving illegally.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#26

Post by bri3d »

scott00 wrote: post #21
BillinghamJ wrote: post #11

Hey. I built Cuvva. Exciting to see it posted on HN, causing a lot of traffic to our site! Cuvva is currently UK-only. Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties. With Cuvva, it's a full comprehensive policy. This is not typically relevant for the US. However we are interested in the potential for other products which might work in the US.

I think coverage by the mile or the hour for primary drivers would be of interest to a lot of car owners in US urban areas. An existing player, Metro Mile, markets their product as pay-per-mile, but the majority of the cost actually comes from a fixed per-month fee. Of course that might be because what I want makes no actuarial sense...

Most US states require that a car be continuously insured as a condition of its registration, so I think a fixed per-month fee is inevitable.

Each US state also regulates insurance completely differently, so trying to break into "the US market" with an insurance company is really trying to break into 50 different legal areas. Very similar to the other article on the HN frontpage today about US "FinTech" / money transmittal companies.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#28

Post by toomuchtodo »

lutorm wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that you can't drive a friend's car is a crazy aspect of US auto insurance. That's not true at all. I have State Farm (IL and FL), and as long as my family member, friend, whatever has my permission to drive the vehicle, they're covered under my policy.

Indeed. It's apparently a little-known fact that this even applies to rental cars, even though the rental car companies do their best to not tell you this. The wikipedia page even mentions this: "Although frequently not explicitly stated, US car rental companies are required by respective state law to provide minimal liability coverage, except in California, where the driver is solely responsible." Of course, minimal…

> It's apparently a little-known fact that this even applies to rental cars, even though the rental car companies do their best to not tell you this.

True, but only up to ~30 days. To continue to be covered longer than that, you need a separate policy, or you need to return and re-rent a rental car every 30 days or so.

> Of course, minimal liability is only good if you have no assets whatsoever...

Having nothing to take is the oldest version of "judgement proof".

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#29

Post by BillinghamJ »

phpnode wrote: post #16
BillinghamJ wrote: post #11

Hey. I built Cuvva. Exciting to see it posted on HN, causing a lot of traffic to our site! Cuvva is currently UK-only. Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties. With Cuvva, it's a full comprehensive policy. This is not typically relevant for the US. However we are interested in the potential for other products which might work in the US.

Hey, this looks really fantastic, it solves a real problem for UK drivers and I think you'll be fantastically successful. However, I couldn't find any information about who's behind the site, and I wonder about the mechanism through which the insurance is provided, how is it backed?

We are authorized & regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority as an intermediary. We have built a partnership with a European underwriter to sell policies on their behalf.

To make Cuvva possible, we've had to build every part of the system from scratch. This is mostly in Node JS, with some RoR thrown in. We also have some open source code on our Github - https://github.com/cuvva

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