What is Rideshare Insurance?
Rideshare insurance is the best defense for a driver. Car accidents happen every day, even to safe drivers. The insurance Uber and Lyft provide won’t cover you in certain situations.
Say you should get into an accident with a rider in your car. First, thing Uber and Lyft are going to do is tell you to contact your insurance company. Then, deactivate you while they investigate, your accident. If there is only minor damage to your car, they will reactivate you and let you continue driving. If it’s serious damage, you will have to get it fixed and a new inspection on your car before they will reactivate your account.
Now let us take a step back and go to Uber and Lyft telling you to call your insurance. Back in the day insurance company’s frowned upon Uber and Lyft drivers, and only a few offered coverage. Now pretty much all major Insurance companies do.
Uber and Lyft’s Insurance
The commercial insurance that Lyft and Uber offer their drivers doesn’t cover everything. The coverage doesn’t extend from the time you start your car to the time the ride has ended in the ridesharing app. Uber and Lyft divide drives into three periods.
Three Periods For Uber and Lyft Drivers
Offline
This period includes all the personal drives you take when you’re not driving for the ridesharing platforms and driver mode is off in the mobile app. You’re only covered by your personal car insurance policy for incidents that occur during this period.
While waiting for request:
While you’re online with Uber and Lyft and before you accept a request, you are covered for your liability to a third party if you are in an accident when you’re at fault. A third-party Coverage includes your liability to pay another person’s medical bills or to pay for property damage.
Coverage limits vary by State, but are at least:
- $50,000 per person
- $100,000 per incident
- $25,000 for property damage.
This is where rideshare insurance would take effect. Bridging the limited coverage offered by Uber and Lyft with yours.
Ride in progress:
Once you take on a ride request, the rideshare coverage is no longer in effect. Primarily because the commercial insurance provided by Uber or Lyft applies to the entire ride recorded by the mobile app. The coverage is the most robust during this period and usually includes bodily injury, property and vehicle damage.
Our best advice for all drivers is to get rideshare insurance if you don’t already have it. Especially if you are a full-time driver. For one wreck could cause you to loose thousands.
Adding on Rideshare Insurance to the coverage you already have will only cost you an extra $50, maybe more.
