How To Handle An Uber Accident While Rideshare Driving

UPDATE: If you’ve recently gotten into an accident while driving for Uber/Lyft, we recommend speaking with Bryant Greening, an attorney at LegalRideshare – (312) 767-2222.  And you can also head over to our new Uber Accident Lawyer Page to learn more.

If you’re looking for rideshare insurance, please check out our Uber and Lyft rideshare insurance marketplace.

Getting in an accident while you’re out driving for Uber is not something that you want to happen, but accidents do happen. If you guys are out there driving for any length or period of time, you’re going to be more and more likely to get into an accident no matter how good of a driver you think you are. I’m going to explain how Uber’s coverage works and how you should handle these situations.

Check out my video on dealing with accidents, then read the transcript of the video below.

How Uber’s insurance coverage works: Period one, two, and three

The first thing you guys got to understand is how the insurance coverage with Uber works. The coverage is split up into three periods: Period one, two, and three. Period one occurs when you log in to the app and you’re waiting for a request. You could be sitting on your couch at home, you could be parked in a parking lot, or you could be driving around looking for a ride, which I don’t typically recommend. Period two starts the second you accept a request. Now you’re en route to a passenger. Once you arrive and the passenger gets into your car, that’s period three. The trip ends once the passenger gets out of the vehicle and then you go back into period one.

Period two and three are when Uber provides $1 million in liability coverage and they also provide collision coverage, but period one is where there’s a little bit of a gap exists. The gap area of period one is where you’re going to want something like a RideShare insurance product to cover you because Uber doesn’t provide collision during period one and they do provide liability, but it’s at much lower limits.

What to do when accidents happen

Let’s say you’re out driving for Uber and you do get into an accident. Regardless of what happens, you’re always going to want to stay calm. I’m talking about literally as soon as the accident happens, stay calm. The first few minutes are super crucial to make sure that you get all the basic information down. What happened? Take a picture of their license plate with your phone. Take a picture of the damage. Take a picture of the driver’s actual license and insurance information when you’re exchanging info. You really want to document as much as you can with your phone taking pictures. I like to even record voice memos too. That’s one thing that always helps me and I think that can really help in the situation of an accident. If you’re not okay, call 911 and handle that, but if it’s just a fender bender or something like that, you kind of want to go through all these steps I just mentioned.

If you are on a trip with Uber, you’re going to provide Uber’s insurance information which can be found on the Waybill of the app. It’s in the options when you’re on a trip. Now, if it was during periods two or three, like I said, Uber will cover you for that $1 million of liability insurance and collision with a $1,000 deductible. If it was period one, Uber will cover you at lower liability limits, but no collision coverage. If there’s damage to your vehicle and you get into an accident during period one, Uber will not provide any coverage.

The benefits of rideshare insurance

That’s where RideShare insurance can really help because if you get into an accident during period one and you don’t have RideShare insurance, not only will Uber not provide any collision, but your personal insurer won’t provide any coverage during period one because you were technically online for Uber. That’s sort of this gray area and that’s where RideShare insurance can come in handy.

We have a list of options you guys can go check out and get a rideshare insurance quote if you’re interested, but that’s the risk that you’re running without Rideshare insurance. Let’s say you trade your Uber insurance information with the other party. Now you’re waiting and seeing what’s going to happen. You can reach out to Uber. You probably want to let them know that you got into an accident. What’s going to happen next though is they’re probably going to deactivate you, or they will deactivate you temporarily until you can show evidence that you’ve gotten your car fixed, but they’ll also start a claim with their insurance company which is called James Rivers Insurance Company.

Once you report the accident, it’s on you to stay on top of the insurance claim

From here, it’s just like a standard insurance claim, but it’s important to really stay on top of these guys and keep following up because they’re not going to care about your car or your situation as much as you do, and if you depend on your car to make money, you’re going to be temporarily deactivated. It’s really up to you to stay on top of Uber. Make sure that they start the claim with James Rivers. Make sure that James Rivers is sending out the insurance adjuster and going through that whole process. Since you don’t have a car you can’t make any money, so you want to get back into your car and get back on the road as fast as possible. Uber’s insurance actually doesn’t provide a rental car, but you could always go through the other person’s insurance to try and get a rental car and recover lost wages. That’s always your other option, and that could be beneficial if the other person was at fault.

Getting into an accident can be expensive and it’s an unfortunate situation whether you’re at fault or not. There’s the towing, there’s the rental cars and deductibles and all that involved, so it’s definitely important through this situation to track all your expenses with an app like QuickBooks Self Employed. You can actually take pictures of all your receipts, all your expenses too and categorize all your transactions. If the other person is at fault and you do plan to go after lost wages, the more official your records are, the better chance you’re going to have of getting money out of that insurance company while your car is out of commission. A lot of drivers use apps like QBSE to track their earnings and expenses, but this is one example of where it can actually make you some money while your car is out of commission.

If you guys liked this video, definitely feel free to give me a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, definitely leave them below and I’ll definitely reach out and respond to you in the comments. Take care and I look forward to hearing from you guys soon.

UPDATE: If you’ve recently gotten into an accident while driving for Uber/Lyft, we recommend speaking with Bryant Greening, an attorney at LegalRideshare – (312) 767-2222.  And you can also head over to our new Uber Accident Lawyer Page to learn more.

If you’re looking for rideshare insurance, please check out our Uber and Lyft rideshare insurance marketplace.