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Turning on a rideshare app changes the insurance picture for your car before a passenger ever opens the door. Florida has a statute written specifically for transportation network companies, and it allows personal auto insurers to step back while you are working. Here is how the coverage periods divide up, where the gaps sit, and what can close them.
Most personal auto policies are priced for commuting, errands and family trips. Carrying strangers for a fare is a different risk, and insurers have long excluded vehicles used to carry people for a charge. Florida's transportation network company law, section 627.748 of the Florida Statutes, confirms that position for app-based driving: an insurer that writes a personal auto policy may exclude any and all coverage while the driver is logged on to the app or providing a prearranged ride.
That exclusion can reach every part of the policy, including bodily injury and property damage liability, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, medical payments, comprehensive, collision and personal injury protection (PIP). The insurer does not have to use particular wording or cite the statute to do it. If an insurer ends up defending a claim its policy excluded, it has a right of contribution against the other insurers covering that driver at the time.
The law does protect people outside the trip. The exclusion does not reduce coverage for permissive drivers or resident relatives under your policy who are not in the car when the loss happens.
Florida draws its lines around what the driver is doing with the app, not around who is sitting in the car. In practice there are three periods:
After a crash, the question of which period you were in can decide the whole claim. The statute gives insurers a way to settle it: during a claims investigation, the rideshare company must provide, on request, the precise times the driver logged on and off in the 12 hours before and the 12 hours after the accident.
Since July 1, 2017, the driver, or the company on the driver's behalf, must keep primary auto insurance that recognizes the person is driving for a transportation network company and covers them while logged on or on a ride. For the waiting period, the minimums are:
These limits can come from the driver's own policy, the company's policy, or a combination of the two. The waiting period is where drivers are most often caught off guard: nobody is in the back seat, yet the personal policy may already treat the trip as work.
From the moment you accept a request until the last passenger exits, the liability minimum rises to $1 million for death, bodily injury and property damage. PIP must meet the minimum amounts Florida requires of a limousine, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage still applies. The coverage can again come from the driver, the company or both.
Two backstops matter here. If the driver's insurance has lapsed or does not provide the required coverage, the company's insurance must provide it starting with the first dollar of the claim and must defend the claim. And the company's coverage cannot be made to wait for a personal insurer to deny the claim first; the personal insurer is not required to issue that denial at all.
Look closely at what those minimums pay for: injuries and damage you cause to others, your own injuries through PIP, and injuries caused by uninsured drivers. Nothing in the statute requires any policy to repair your own car. If your personal policy excludes comprehensive and collision while you are logged on, damage to your vehicle may depend entirely on what the rideshare company's policy offers, and on its terms.
Before you can accept a ride, the company must tell you in writing what coverage it provides, the limits for each coverage, and that your own policy might not cover you while you are logged on or carrying a rider. Save that disclosure. If the company's insurer does pay a comprehensive or collision claim, the law sends the payment to the repair shop or jointly to you and your primary lienholder, which matters if the car is financed.
A lender or leasing company may require physical damage coverage at all times. A stretch of app time when neither policy would repair the car can leave you out of step with the loan terms.
The same statute that lets personal insurers exclude app time also says an insurer may provide primary or excess coverage for a rideshare driver's vehicle by contract or endorsement. That is the opening for a rideshare endorsement, or for a policy built for drivers who work on apps.
These products are not uniform. Some extend your personal coverages into the waiting period only; others also sit behind the company's coverage during a ride. Before buying one, ask:
If the business-use wording in your current policy is hard to follow, a plain-English policy translation can show you where the exclusion sits before you shop.
Section 627.748 is written around carrying riders. Its definitions describe a driver who connects with riders through a digital network and provides prearranged rides. Delivering food, groceries or packages is a different use, and your personal policy's own wording on business use or delivery decides what happens. Ask about delivery by name instead of assuming a rideshare endorsement reaches it.
Carrying passengers for pay outside an app is riskier still. The company must warn its drivers in writing that rides for compensation which are not prearranged rides bring separate financial responsibility requirements, with penalties that can reach a second-degree misdemeanor.
Do I have to tell my auto insurer that I drive for a rideshare app?
Florida does not require a personal auto policy to cover app driving, and many exclude it. Keeping the use quiet does not create coverage; it tends to create a dispute after a claim. Telling the insurer up front is how you get an endorsement or a policy that actually fits the way the car is used.
Is the rideshare company's insurance enough on its own?
It is designed to meet Florida's minimums for liability, PIP and uninsured motorist coverage while you are logged on or carrying a rider. It may not repair your own car, and the waiting-period limits are far lower than the ride-period limits. Whether that is enough depends on your car's value, your loan terms and what you could pay out of pocket.
What proof of insurance should a rideshare driver carry?
Florida requires rideshare drivers to carry proof of the required coverage whenever they use the car with the app, and it can be shown on a phone. After an accident, the driver must share that coverage information with the other parties involved, their insurers and the investigating officers.
The clearest way to see your exposure is to lay your personal policy next to the rideshare company's written disclosure and walk through each app period. A Truscott coverage review can show where your current auto policy stops and whether a rideshare endorsement or a different policy would close the gap for your own car. Start a Florida auto insurance quote and mention which apps you use and roughly how many hours a week you are logged on.
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