A French Uber Rival Wants to Become a Car Insurance Broker
The BlaBlaCar headquarters in Paris.
Photographer: Christophe Morin/Bloomberg
French Uber rival Blablacar has fetched a billion-dollar-plus valuation by attracting some 50 million drivers and passengers to its ride-sharing app. Now it’s exploring whether to step on insurers’ toes to cash in on that crowd.
A team of 10 at Blablacar’s Paris headquarters is experimenting with an insurance brokerage business that would sell packages tailored to ride-sharing, as the company expects more and more drivers and riders to seek additional protection for individual trips, over and above the cost of insuring a vehicle. Blablacar has collected large volumes of data from about 10 years of connecting drivers and passengers, including peer reviews, route information and identity checks.