Rideshare Accidents
It depends entirely on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of the crash. With a passenger aboard or on the way to one, a $1 million commercial policy applies. Waiting for a request, far smaller contingent limits apply. App off, it is an ordinary personal claim. As a passenger you are almost never at fault, so the fight is about coverage rather than blame.
Texas regulates transportation network companies by statute, and the coverage steps up in stages.
App off: the driver is a private motorist and only their personal policy applies. Logged in and waiting for a request: contingent coverage applies at lower limits, and many personal policies exclude the period entirely. Request accepted, through drop-off: the $1 million commercial layer applies.
So the first thing to establish is not who was careless but exactly what the app showed. Trip records, the driver’s app history and the company’s own logs settle it, and requesting them early is what stops that becoming a dispute.
A passenger in the back seat is not going to be assigned fault. What that means practically is that your claim will be paid by someone — the question is by whom.
If the rideshare driver caused it, the applicable tier answers it. If another driver caused it, that driver’s policy comes first, and the rideshare uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage sits behind it where their limits are too small.
Where both drivers share fault, both policies can be reached, which is why these claims are worth more than people assume.
Rideshare companies classify drivers as independent contractors, which generally blocks the usual argument that the company is responsible for the driver’s conduct.
That is what the insurance tiers exist to answer, and in the passenger period the coverage is large enough that the classification rarely matters.
Claims aimed at the company itself — negligent vetting of a driver, for example — are harder and fact-specific, and are not the ordinary route.
The same tiers apply. A rideshare driver who was carrying a passenger and ran a light is covered by the $1 million layer whether you were their passenger, in the vehicle they hit, or crossing the road.
The practical difference is that you have no trip record of your own, so establishing the driver’s app status matters even more, and it needs to be requested before the data is aged out.
Screenshot the trip in your app — driver, vehicle, times, route. That is the single most useful document in the case, and it is only in your hands.
Report the crash through the app as well as to the police, and get the crash report number.
Photograph the vehicles and the scene, and get the other driver’s details as you would in any collision.
Get treated, and do not give a recorded statement to any of the insurers involved before you have advice. There will be several.
Yes. While a driver has a passenger aboard, a $1 million commercial liability policy applies.
Lower contingent limits apply, and many personal policies exclude that period. Establishing the app status is the first task.
The rideshare policy’s uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can apply behind the at-fault driver’s limits.
Usually not for the driver’s conduct — drivers are classified as independent contractors. The tiered insurance is what answers that, and in the passenger period the limits are substantial.
Two years from the crash.
Automated intake assistant. It does not give legal advice and using it does not create an attorney–client relationship.