Uber and Lyft are such innovative alternatives to taxis and long-established private transportation services. They are convenient and affordable. We also have Insta-cart and Air Bnb and I recently learned about Turo. All these services are nice, convenient, and often an affordable alternative for consumers, but if you decide to represent or in some cases utilize any of these services, you must talk with your agent first.
It’s so important that you talk to your insurance agent because insurance policies do not automatically include coverage for these exposures and the answers vary significantly from one carrier to the next. My family recently booked a trip to Alaska. We were looking at renting a car through Turo, which was much more cost effective than traditional services like Enterprise. However, after discussing with our insurer – Progressive – we learned that our automobile policy would not follow us/cover us when driving a rental car with Turo and after reviewing the insurance we could purchase from Turo we realized that it left us with less liability and uninsured motorist coverage than our current policy provided.
We always welcome and encourage a discussion before a client commits to providing one of these services or in the case of Turo, utilizes these services.
We have carriers that will allow us to just simply put an endorsement on your policy that says that you work for Lyft, or you work for Uber, or you Airbnb your home on occasion. We have some carriers that state if you participate with any ride or home sharing that they will not insure you altogether and then we have scenarios where carriers will say, “Hey, we don’t have a special endorsement. We’re not covering it, but we will still be your insurer, but if you have a claim while you’re operating or working on behalf of Lyft or Uber, we’re not going to jump in and provide coverage for you.” That personally, as an insurance agent makes me nervous. So again, if you’re a client of ours or anyone for that matter, and you’re working with one of these organizations, we want to review your policies and make sure that there is an endorsement and there are protections for you in place.
Take Uber, for example. I know a lot of these companies provide their own insurance to you, but there are still some coverage gaps or gray areas. An example with Uber would be that yes, once you click accept and you’re enroute to pick up your passenger, you technically should have protections in place from Uber. Me personally, I would still like to know that my policy, my personal automobile policy is following me as well. Uber does provide some umbrella of coverage to you when you have accepted a ride and are transporting a passenger, but let’s back up and say, you are just riding around town with your app on. You have the app on, and you haven’t accepted a ride. During that window of time, you are not covered by Uber and you are not covered by your insurance unless you have had a conversation with your insurance provider and ensured that you have an endorsement and protections for the additional exposure of being a Uber provider.
At Knight Magee Insurance, we have multiple carriers that cover Airbnb, Uber, Lyft. We can do it all, but just don’t assume that it’s automatically covered. Have a conversation with us first. We’re happy to look at your policy and go over it with you to ensure that there are no coverage gaps, and you are not putting yourself at risk to have a future claim denied. www.knightmageeinsurance.com – 804-320-0129