MPI not sleeping on ride-share fraud

Rust never sleeps.

You may remember those words as the title of a Neil Young and Crazy Horse album from 1979. You might even recognize an even older use of the words as an advertising slogan for anti-rust paint Rust-Oleum.

Or you might be more familiar with the overall concept behind the saying.

That is, that corrosion is a continuous thing that requires constant attention and action, rather than one simple fix. You might even look at it specifically from the point of view of society, as defined by Quora: “neglect, decadence, or entropy accumulate quietly; vigilance and maintenance of institutions or values are necessary.”

Now, to MPI and ride-sharing.

On Oct. 8, Manitoba Public Insurance announced, after a review which began last December, that it had found widespread fraud in the ride-share business, whereby operators were improperly switching insurance coverage on their vehicles to save money.

“When a driver changes their coverage from ride-share insurance to a personal vehicle coverage and continues to operate as a ride-share driver, that is fraud, plain and simple,” MPI chief executive officer Satvir Jatana told a news conference.

The initial review looked at 408 ride-share drivers and found 108 of them had changed their coverage to personal all-purpose or pleasure use policies, which are up to 50 per cent cheaper. As the search went deeper, more than 3,000 ride share drivers were found to be using the cheaper insurance and were banned from operating in Winnipeg.

Companies such as Uber and Lyft obviously want their drivers to be properly insured, because of the risks to drivers and their customers and work with insurers to stop abuse of the insurance system.

Ride-share companies require proof of proper insurance, which means drivers are knowingly presenting that proof to sign up and are subsequently changing the insurance, meaning they are aware of what they are doing, but are willing to take the chance to save roughly $1,500 a year on insurance costs.

“We’re turning every stone to ensure that we understand the full picture of this and more importantly, prevent it,” Jatana said. “It is impacting all Manitobans, both in collection of premiums and not paying their fair share of claims and premiums, essentially.”

For their part, ride-share companies have argued that there are tools to enforce compliance: for example, in other Canadian jurisdictions, ride-hailing services purchase umbrella insurance coverage for trips on the company’s own platform.

While this all sounds like an example of things going wrong — drivers using a handy loophole to bypass the insurance they are legally required to carry — it’s also an example of things going right, in that the companies and authorities involved are trying their best to catch the problem and address it.

Enforcement is always going to be a game of catch-up — even the laws of physics dictate it.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It’s Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

If you leave a street through a quiet residential neighbourhood open while doing construction on a nearby thoroughfare, plenty of drivers are going to barrel down it. If you have airline carry-on rules that the airlines never enforce, overhead bins will always be completely stuffed with extra bags as passengers hobble aboard like overloaded cart-horses to avoid baggage fees.

Heck, there are probably scores of other Manitoba drivers who claim their vehicle is used solely for pleasure in order to pay lower premiums, yet blithely drive to work and back every single day.

If you decide to turn a blind eye to an obvious issue, it will grow.

Rust never sleeps.