HyreCar Scouts Insurance Options Amid Profit Growth
HyreCar is leveraging its 2018 growth to either reprice or onboard a new insurance provider this year, Chief Executive Joe Furnari, told Auto Finance News. The startup’s growth in earnings, operations, and geographic expansion allows more room for negotiations as its insurance renewal date approaches in early April.
“We’re coming up on that renewal date,” Furnari said. “The question is: ‘Are we going to stay with the carrier or are there other carriers out there that can provide us with a more competitive fit?’”
HyreCar is in discussions with a couple of different carriers, Furnari said, without disclosing which companies are on the shortlist. However, the company is in talks with Uber and Lyft’s insurance providers, Chief Financial Officer Scott Brogi, told AFN.
“One of the nice things about getting bigger is we’re now talking to Uber and Lyft’s insurance carriers as we’re looking at repricing ours for 2019. As you get bigger, you have more bargaining power in those kinds of situations,” Brogi said.
HyreCar’s current insurance provider is AIG Insurance, Brogi said. Lyft uses Apollo Wealth Management, and Uber uses James River Insurance domestically, he added.
The company expects gross profit for 2018 to grow 1500% to about $4.9 million, up from $300,000 in 2017. Insurance, Brogi said, had a “big impact” on HyreCar’s savings and profit. To that end, the company is able to increase rental days “pretty dramatically” and spread its insurance and direct costs over a bigger base, Brogi said. “In the early days, we didn’t have as much business to spread out,” he added.
HyreCar rolled out its platform to all 50 states in November last year. The number of rental days on its platform has been steadily growing, with about 400,000 in 2018 compared with 175,000 in 2017. HyreCar is “well ahead of 400,000 already in 2019,” Furnari said, declining to disclose an exact number.
The company anticipates releasing its annual financial reporting at the end of this quarter.
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