Car-sharing services have been enjoying rapid expansion in South Korea due to the convenience of leasing cars simply through apps. The number of users for the service surged seventyfold in the past five years.

The popularity, however, has come with a downfall of increased car accidents involving car-sharing vehicles, which are used highly among the younger drivers and often lack proper screening system of drivers and their licenses.

According to the Korea Insurance Research Institute, the accident rate of vehicles used through car-sharing services was 149.6 percent.

The accident rate is calculated by dividing the number of accidents occurred in a year by the average running vehicles. The number only takes into account accidents that involved compensating the other vehicles‘ damages.

The KIRI advised that insurance policies for car-sharing vehicles hence apply different coverages based on the accident risk or introduce a stricter screening process for drivers.