Uber and Lyft Accidents in California: Which Policy Pays

You were riding in the back of an Uber, or a Lyft driver ran the light and hit your car, and now you have a first name, a plate number, and a trip receipt instead of an insurance card. Which policy pays you depends almost entirely on what the driver's app was doing at the moment of impact. One of those policies got dramatically smaller at the start of 2026, and most of what you will read online has not caught up.

The app decides which policy applies

California calls Uber and Lyft transportation network companies, or TNCs. The California Public Utilities Commission licenses them, describing a TNC as a company that provides "prearranged transportation services for compensation using an online-enabled application or platform." Operating here requires a CPUC permit.

Public Utilities Code § 5433 sets the insurance, and it splits a driver's shift into phases:

• App off. The driver is a private citizen running errands. Only their personal auto policy applies. California's minimum for a private passenger vehicle is $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 for property damage.
• App on, no ride accepted. From the moment the driver logs on until they accept a request, § 5433(c) requires primary coverage of at least $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident, and $30,000 for property damage, plus at least $200,000 per occurrence in excess coverage.
• Ride accepted through drop-off. From the moment the driver accepts a request until the ride is complete, § 5433(b) requires $1,000,000 in primary coverage for death, personal injury, and property damage.

That is a twenty-fold swing in available money, and it turns on a tap in an app that nobody at the scene can see. It is the most contested fact in these cases, which is why the evidence section below matters more than usual.

Two provisions in § 5433 are quietly on your side. Under subdivision (d), the TNC coverage "shall not be dependent on a personal automobile insurance policy first denying a claim," so the company cannot make you chase the driver's personal insurer first and wait for a rejection letter. Under subdivision (e), if the required TNC insurance has lapsed, the company itself has to provide the coverage "beginning with the first dollar of a claim."

What changed on January 1, 2026

SB 371 amended § 5433 and took effect on January 1, 2026. It left the $1,000,000 liability figure alone, and gutted a different one.

According to the Legislative Counsel's Digest, existing law had required uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage "in the amount of $1,000,000 from the moment a passenger enters the vehicle." SB 371 lowered that to $60,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, and made the company, rather than the driver, responsible for carrying it. That coverage is primary over any other applicable uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

The requirement now sits in § 5433(b), the subdivision covering the accepted-ride period. Whether it attaches at the moment the driver accepts the request or only once a passenger is physically in the car is exactly the kind of detail worth pinning down early in a specific claim rather than assuming.

Why the uninsured motorist cut matters more than it sounds

The $1,000,000 liability policy only helps you if the rideshare driver was at fault. Often they were not. Somebody else ran the light, drifted the lane, or left the scene entirely.

When the at-fault driver has no insurance, not enough insurance, or is never identified, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is what pays. Using Insurance Research Council data, the Insurance Information Institute puts California's uninsured driver rate at 17.0 percent as of 2022, against a national rate of 14.0 percent. Roughly one in six drivers on the road beside your Uber is carrying nothing.

Before 2026, a passenger seriously hurt by an uninsured driver had a million dollars behind them. Now the ceiling on that same claim is $60,000 per person. A hospital stay and a surgery can pass $60,000 without touching lost wages.

Be careful what you read about this. As of this writing, the CPUC's own TNC insurance requirements page still lists $1,000,000 in uninsured motorist coverage for the passenger-on-board period. That figure was correct until the end of 2025. Plenty of blog posts and insurance summaries still repeat it.

Your own coverage has not gone anywhere

You are not limited to the company's policy. As a passenger you may still have your own uninsured motorist coverage, medical payments coverage, and health insurance, and a household member's policy can sometimes reach you.

The order matters. Because the TNC's uninsured motorist coverage is primary over any other applicable UM or UIM coverage, yours sits behind it rather than in front of it. That does not make yours worthless. It means the sequence of claims and settlements has to be handled deliberately, for the same reasons described in our post on being hit by an uninsured driver.

If the app was off, one more problem appears. The California Department of Insurance has warned TNC drivers that personal auto policies commonly exclude livery use with language like "we do not provide coverage … arising out of the ownership or operation of a vehicle while it is being used as a public or livery conveyance." A driver who was carrying a passenger off the app can find their own insurer walking away.

Save the evidence that proves which period it was

The company knows exactly what its app was doing. You do not, unless you preserve it now.

• Screenshot the trip in your app immediately. Driver name, vehicle and plate, pickup and drop-off times, and the route map. Do this the same day, before the trip scrolls out of your history.
• Save the emailed receipt. It is timestamped and it comes from the company, which makes it harder to argue with later.
• Report the crash through the app's safety flow, briefly. Report that it happened. Do not narrate fault or your symptoms. The recorded statement traps are identical here.
• Get the police report. If you were a passenger, make sure the officer records you as an occupant. People get left off.
• Collect witnesses. In a rideshare crash the other passengers are often strangers who will be impossible to find in a month.
• Report it to your own insurer too, even though it was not your car.

Public data will not rescue you here. TNCs file annual reports with the CPUC that include collision and incident data, but those are aggregate, redacted, and years behind. Your screenshots are the record that matters.

What this means in California

The deadlines are the ordinary ones, and a corporate defendant does not soften them.

• Two years. Under CCP § 335.1, a personal injury claim generally must be filed within two years of the injury.
• Six months. If a public entity is involved, a city bus, a public agency vehicle, a dangerous condition in the roadway, a formal government claim is usually due within six months. That arrives long before the two-year date.
• Pure comparative negligence. Your recovery is reduced by your share of fault rather than barred.

There is a real advantage buried in that last point. You almost never share fault in a crash you were sitting in the back of. When two drivers blame each other, a passenger can generally pursue both, and the fight over who caused it is between the insurers rather than aimed at you.

Practical next steps

Get treated and keep treating, because gaps in your records get used against you regardless of who hit you. Screenshot the trip today. Save the receipt. Request the police report. Ask your own insurer for your declarations page so you know what uninsured motorist limits you carry. Do not accept an early number from a rideshare claims adjuster while you are still in treatment, for the same reason the first offer is almost always a lowball. And do not assume the $1,000,000 headline figure is the money available to you until someone has established which period the app was in. If you want a read on where you stand, a free consultation costs nothing and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.