Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

cuvva.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 57 posts

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#31

Post by latimer »

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.

Interesting idea. Do you think you'll have any issues with people trying to wait until they get into an accident to sign up for a Cuvva policy then filing a claim as if the accident happened after the policy went into effect?

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#32

Post by mikeash »

nadams wrote: post #17
justizin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, really, but if that person gets into an accident, the insurance will probably be canceled immediately. When I was younger, my dad had my car on his insurance policy, but didn't tell me that it was cheaper because he said I lived at his address and only drove in the (rural) area he lived. When I had a minor collision in a parking lot, we both found ourselves without insurance.

That seems rather surprising they would drop you after one accident. I mean - if they were mad that you lied where you drove - how did they know that it wasn't a one time thing like visiting a friend? I would find it rather silly if you had to call your insurance company ahead and ask for their permission to drive outside of the area you said you would be driving in.

I imagine the troublesome bit was when the dad lied about where the kid lived. Residency can usually be proven or disproven, and where you live can affect your rates significantly.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#33

Post by mikeash »

cmdrfred wrote: post #23
chrisseaton wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 im…

What's odd about that? It would be weird if driving were a solitary activity, but when you drive you place significant risk on other people. You can easily use a car to cause damage that greatly exceeds what an average person can pay, so to ensure that you don't leave others in the lurch, they require you to carry liability insurance. They don't care one bit if you damage your own car beyond your ability to cover it, because that's your own problem.

There's nothing weird about a $100 car costing $1000 to insure, because the insurance isn't about the $100 car, it's about the $20,000 (or $100,000) car you might crash into.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#34

Post by BillinghamJ »

latimer wrote: post #31
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.

Interesting idea. Do you think you'll have any issues with people trying to wait until they get into an accident to sign up for a Cuvva policy then filing a claim as if the accident happened after the policy went into effect?

Before you buy the policy, you snap a quick photo of the vehicle. This helps prevent fraudulent claims.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#35

Post by mikeash »

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.)

It's not like this is new. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and AirBnB have been front-page favorites for ages.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#37

Post by mikeash »

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…

In addition to that, most personal car insurance policies cover rentals, and every credit card I've ever seen provides insurance for cars rented with that credit card. The average renter is covered by three different policies (the rental company's policy, their personal auto policy, and their credit card, although they don't perfectly overlap and may not cover everything you'd want) before the rental company tries to get them to buy a fourth.

Please do your own research before relying on any of this, of course! Especially since individual insurance and credit cards may vary. But personally I've not seen any reason to purchase the insurance they offer.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#38

Post by 27182818284 »

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.

I had to have proof of insurance to get plates. Not sure how this works around that...

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#39

Post by notahacker »

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.)

It's a startup, they built the stack from scratch which is probably a fair bit more complicated under the hood than it looks, it's a niche which is (probably) currently unserved and it's in a decidedly unglamorous industry.

Not to mention also a service which London-based developers are actually pretty likely to consider using on occasion.

It has a lot more reason to be on here than many other popular links.

Post reply on HN