Extra Cash from Your Car

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DenisD
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Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by DenisD »

I received the following email from my car insurance company today:
At belairdirect, we’re committed to making insurance simple and to supporting our customers’ needs. With the sharing economy growing in popularity, we’re offering you the freedom to rent your car out through Turo to earn extra cash without affecting your coverage.

Now that’s peace of mind!

The good news doesn’t stop there! In celebration of the launch of our new partnership, Turo is offering you a unique offer.

Car owners: $100 Cash deposited in your Turo account when you first rent out your car on Turo*

ABOUT TURO

Turo is a car rental marketplace where travellers can rent any car they want, wherever they want, from a community of local car owners in Canada and the U.S.

A pioneer of the sharing economy and travel industry, Turo is a safe, responsible and reliable way to rent your car to others or to rent a car for your own needs. So get out and explore!
Checking https://turo.com, I see that, in Calgary, I can rent a fancy, 2015 BMW for $153/day. Presumably, my VW
would go for much less. There are only three cars available in Calgary. Early days.

I don't think I'll take advantage of the offer. But, if I did, I wonder how long it would be before my insurance went up.
HardWorker
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by HardWorker »

Even if I had a beater car on it's absolute last legs, and I was offered $500 a day, I'd say hell no. What a dumb idea.
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Bylo Selhi
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by Bylo Selhi »

DenisD wrote:I don't think I'll take advantage of the offer. But, if I did, I wonder how long it would be before my insurance went up.
What did BAD say when you called them to ask? ;)

Even so that's amateur hour. There are related ways to generate even more cash from this. There's an app that lets you offer up your driveway or part thereof as parking space. So you can also rent out the parking space your car isn't occupying when it's rented out. Do the math. Maybe you can find a car dealer desperate enough to lease a car for low enough that the car/parking rental income more than offsets car lease payments. Then you can make profit without leaving the house :rofl:

P.S. And with the expectation of profit comes tax deductibility of related expenses like maintenance and even insurance :geek:
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gobsmack
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by gobsmack »

DenisD wrote:
At belairdirect, we’re committed to making insurance simple and to supporting our customers’ needs. With the sharing economy growing in popularity, we’re offering you the freedom to rent your car out through Turo to earn extra cash without affecting your coverage.
I would be interested to know how much more they would be charging you for insurance if you listed your car on Turo.

I do agree with HardWorker though. It sounds like a bad idea. Cars are very expensive to maintain and poor drivers can easily impact the cost to do so.
DenisD
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by DenisD »

I assume from the email there would be no extra charge. But I'm not interested. So I haven't called them.

Lots of people have no problem renting out their homes. Are cars more sacred? :wink:
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farco
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by farco »

The problem is at the contrary of a car, you cannot have an accident with a house, or beat it because you are a bad driver (well.. I know, someone can partying in your house and trash it but we take the extremes :shock: ).

So no more sacred, but highly hazardous.
OhGreatGuru
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Re: Extra Cash from Your Car

Post by OhGreatGuru »

I can't believe OP's own insurance company is encouraging him to do this. It's just contrary to everything you would expect from an insurance company. Do they have some corporate investment in Turo that they are trying to subsidize? And when did Belair Direct get into the insurance business?

PS. I just read the Wikipedia article on Turo. I think they're one good lawsuit away from collapsing their business model.
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