Uber and Lyft Driver Rideshare Insurance April 2016 Update
Last year was a big year for car insurance coverage for rideshare drivers. In 2014, almost no insurer would cover rideshare drivers explicitly. Due to legislation in multiple states, large insurance companies have built specific policies or riders on existing policies to insure Lyft and Uber drivers. In January of this year, there was rideshare insurance in one form or another in 29 states, which is a huge change from the previous year. Insurance companies did not start publicizing policies until the fall of last year but more companies are actively adding policies in numerous states.
April Update:
Farmer and Geico was very active in adding rideshare insurance coverage in more states over the past three months. Here are the states that now have rideshare coverage that did not have it as of January 2016:
- Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Vermont.
Here are the states that they now insure in that they did not as of early January:
- Arizona: Geico
- Alabama: Farmers (as told to me by an insurance agent, not on official webpage)
- Colorado: Geico
- Georgia: Farmers
- Illinois: Farmers and Geico (numerous other companies already offer rideshare insurance here already)
- Indiana: Geico
- Iowa: Geico
- Louisiana: Geico
- Mississippi: Geico
- Nebraska: Farmers and Geico
- New Jersey: Farmers
- New Mexico: Farmers and Geico
- Oklahoma: Geico
- Oregon: Geico
- Rhode Island: Geico
- South Carolina: Geico
- South Dakota: Geico
- Tennessee: Farmers
- Vermont: Geico
- West Virginia: Geico
- Wyoming: Geico
Rideshare Insurance Coverage Summary
The great news is that drivers in 37 states now can get auto insurance that also covers their rideshare activities (Period 1). Many insurance claim that it will add about $20-$40 a month to their premium, which isn’t bad for the increase risk of our rideshare activity. I have listed all 50 states, even though Uber only operates in 46 of those states. I have also listed if there are rideshare insurance in every state in my master insurance post:
The Big Rideshare Insurance Issue
The insurance issue comes from the fact that rideshare is considered “for-hire”, therefore considered to violate personal auto insurance terms of conditions. Uber and Lyft both carry their own commercial insurance but the problem is that the insurance is not primary in some instances. The “grey area” is when you are online with Lyft and Uber but with no passengers in the car. Many are calling this “period 1” coverage.
Many personal auto insurance won’t even cover you during “Period 1” so that leaves Lyft and Uber drivers at risk of covering the accident out of pocket. The current status quo was to tell your auto insurance that you weren’t on Lyft or Uber, which is unfortunately a crime. However, there are now options for drivers in many states
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