London based car owners can now make money from their cars when not using them. Whipcar is a UK based service which allows a car owner to rent it out to his neighborhood for a few hours to even weeks. What’s more, the renting has no impact on the car’s own insurance as it is automatically insured for the renter for the agreed duration of hire, without affecting the car’s existing insurance.
Both car owners and renters have to register with the site, after which Whipcar carries some background checks on them. When someone applies to rent a car, the owner is sent an email alert with the potential renter’s profile. The owner chooses the hourly rates and gets to accept or reject the renter. Once the booking is accepted, the charges are debited from the renter’s credit card and the owner is provided with the last 4 digits of the driver’s driving license for verification and both parties agree to meet at a chosen location for the driver to take the car and then drop off at the return time.
Founder Vinay Gupta cites a report that says many cars in the UK were used for less than an hour a day by their owners and his own research shows that there are people who would gladly pay for renting a car from their neighborhood. The service is initially operating in London with plans of expanding across the country shortly.
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