Inshur partners with Uber to offer app users ‘fully digital’ insurance

Inshur, the mobile-first provider of commercial auto insurance for private hire drivers, has teamed up with smartphone taxi app Uber to offer drivers who use the Uber app insurance. The partners said the fully digital insurance service tie up was “one of the first of its kind:.

Risks and pricing are calculated using information about average trips, location and driver ratings in near real-time. The aim is to reward safe driving with cheaper policies.

The partners said that traditionally, it has not been an easy process for drivers to purchase specialist private hire vehicle insurance. They conducted a survey which showed that more than half of drivers waited a day or more for their policy and 11 percent waited for one or two weeks.

Inshur said the app means drivers can log in with their Uber ID, scan their licences, select cover and pay for a policy digitally, in a process they said only takes three minutes. While policy changes can be made via the app at any time.

With the new app, the partners aim to cut insurance fraud by using real-time digital checks conducted by Inshur. The app has “automated driver validation” which works on the scans of the driving licence and private hire licences. Documents are automatically uploaded to the Uber platform.

Fred Jones, director at Uber London, said: “Safety is at the heart of everything we do and motor insurance is at the heart of private hire safety. We have introduced many new safety features in the app and improved our processes over the past 18 months. However, we won’t stop there because when it comes to safety on our platform, our work is never done.”

David Daiches, co-founder for Inshur, said: "We have built a data-driven technology platform, secured insurance capacity with a trusted global insurer and are scaling our business in New York and the UK. The relationship with Uber further extends our focus on technology, data and real-time usage based risk assessment. The aim will be to reward the safe and highest rated professional drivers, this is a great thing for everyone."

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