Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Originally Posted By: jeepman3071
Bingo. Saw a few nasty auto bodily injury claims with Uber riders. Driver gets distracted, hits a telephone pole, and is at fault for the accident which injured his/her passenger. Driver's insurance denies coverage,
Uber wants nothing to do with it, and now the passenger sues the Uber driver for their medical bills.
I could go on and on, and will avoid using Uber until I absolutely have to. I'd rather have a friend drive me to the airport for a few bucks in gas.
How can Uber's insurance deny coverage? Uber and Lyft are supposed to cover an excess liability that the driver's own personal car insurance won't cover.
Are you saying riders are NOT covered at all (liability
BI/PD)?
The problem is there are so many gray areas, and the company does that purposefully. Technically the drivers are contractors for Uber. While in some instances Uber may be responsible, you can't get them to pay if they never acknowledge the claim. We had situations where people were waiting months to hear back from them, and finally just used their own policy or sued the driver so they could get injuries cured and vehicles fixed. Insurance companies do the same thing, it is all a waiting game of who breaks first. If it is within the coverage of the driver's policy and their insurance won't deny coverage for taxi service, they can usually just get away with that. However, with more people driving for Uber, insurance companies see it as a risk and now investigate more thoroughly.
I had the same waiting game thing happened with an accident I was personally involved in. It was 100% the other driver's fault, I was stopped at a stop sign. My vehicle was considered totaled, but the other driver's insurance never called me back with payment for damages. They were hoping I would just give up and go away. I called every day for a month with no answer. Finally my father called them and threatened to sue and somehow they called back an hour later with an offer.
Claims work the same way. Having worked in that environment I now have a little sympathy for adjusters, going back and forth with everyone involved and coming to an agreement for several cases a day in a world where you get penalized for paying out to insureds is crazy.
