Insurance Coverage After a Crash During a Rideshare Trip

Attorney Answer

Which policy pays depends on what the app was doing at the moment of the crash, and a passenger saying she is fine at the scene does not close her claim. Those are the two things worth understanding here, and the second one is the reason to document the trip now rather than later.

On coverage, Texas sets insurance requirements for transportation network companies and their drivers, and the layers generally turn on the driver's status in the app: offline, logged on and waiting, en route to a pickup, or carrying a rider. A drop-off in progress is usually treated as the last of those, which is normally the layer with the largest limits, but the specific statutory requirements and the company's policy terms are what control. Have a Texas attorney read the actual policy against the trip record before anyone tells you what coverage applies. Your personal auto policy is a separate question, because personal policies commonly exclude driving for hire, and the answer is in your own policy language.

Underneath the coverage question is ordinary Texas crash law. Tex. Transp. Code § 601.051 requires financial responsibility for a vehicle, and § 601.072(a-1) sets minimum limits of $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per crash for two or more, and $25,000 for property damage. Fault gets allocated in percentages: under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001 a claimant more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing, § 33.012(a) reduces damages by the claimant's own share, and § 33.013(a) makes each defendant answerable only for its own percentage.

Your scene duties are set by statute. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.023 requires the operator of a vehicle involved in a collision resulting in injury, death, or damage to an occupied vehicle to give their name and address, the vehicle's registration number, and the name of their liability insurer to anyone injured and to the other driver or occupants, to show a driver's license if asked and available, and to provide reasonable assistance to anyone injured. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.022(a) requires the operator to stop at or near the scene and remain until those requirements are met.

As for the passenger: nothing she said at the scene waives anything. A claim ends when a release is signed, not when someone says they feel fine. She has the same two-year window everyone else does, and injuries that appear days later are common. That is why the record of the trip matters.

What you can do

1. Report the crash through the rideshare app promptly, and keep the confirmation. Coverage under the company's policy generally depends on the trip record.

2. Save the in-app trip details before they age out: the trip identifier, the timestamps, the pickup and drop-off, and the cancellation notice.

3. Request the crash report from the law-enforcement agency that responded, and keep the report number.

4. Notify your own auto insurer of the crash, and ask in writing whether your policy covers or excludes driving for a transportation network company.

5. Preserve what already exists — photos, dashcam footage, messages, and repair estimates — and let a lawyer decide what gets shared and with whom.

6. Before giving a recorded statement to any insurer about how the crash happened, ask a Texas attorney to review the trip record and the policies, especially while fault is unsettled. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with someone who can ask you questions is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) generally gives two years from the day the cause of action accrues to sue for personal injury and for property damage, and that window belongs to anyone with a claim arising from this crash, including a passenger. Insurance policies also impose their own, shorter notice conditions. Have a Texas attorney confirm the dates that apply to your facts.