Uber and Lyft Accidents in San Francisco: How the $1 Million Policy, App Status, and New SB 371 Rules Decide Your Case — A Rideshare Lawyer Explains

John Roach, Esq. | August 5, 2026 | California Law \ Car Accidents

Uber and Lyft Accidents in San Francisco: How the $1 Million Policy, App Status, and New SB 371 Rules Decide Your Case — A Rideshare Lawyer Explains

Rideshare is woven into daily life in San Francisco — and so are rideshare crashes. When you are hurt in an Uber or Lyft, the most important facts about your case are two things most riders have never heard of. First, which insurance applies depends entirely on what the driver’s app was doing at the moment of the crash. Second, as of January 1, 2026, California quietly rewrote part of the rideshare insurance rulebook, and one of the most important protections riders used to have was cut by more than 90 percent. The same collision can be backed by a $1 million policy or by a fraction of that, based on details no one at the scene will explain to you. As an Uber and Lyft accident lawyer practicing since 2009, untangling those questions is where I protect injured riders, drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

The Coverage Periods That Decide Everything

Uber and Lyft structure their insurance around the driver’s app status, broken into periods. Knowing which period applies is the whole ballgame:

• Period 0 — App off. The driver is not working. Only their personal auto insurance applies, just like any ordinary driver on the road.
• Period 1 — App on, waiting for a ride request. Limited contingent liability coverage applies — meaningful, but far below the full commercial policy.
• Periods 2 and 3 — En route to a pickup, or carrying a passenger. This is when the company’s $1 million third-party liability coverage applies to injuries the rideshare driver causes.

If you were a passenger in an Uber or Lyft when it crashed, you are almost always in Period 3 — which means the rideshare commercial liability coverage of up to $1 million is in play when your driver is at fault, and as a passenger you are virtually never at fault yourself. The fight is rarely about whether you can recover; it is about which insurer must pay, and how much coverage is actually available under the new rules.

What Changed on January 1, 2026: SB 371 Cut the UM/UIM Safety Net

This is the part almost no one riding in an Uber this year knows. In October 2025, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 371 as part of a negotiated package with the rideshare companies and organized labor. Effective January 1, 2026, SB 371 slashed the uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage that Uber and Lyft must carry for the people in their vehicles — from $1 million per incident down to $60,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.

Understand what that means in practice. There are two different pots of money in a rideshare crash:

• Liability coverage — when the rideshare driver is at fault. This remains at $1 million during Periods 2 and 3. If your Uber driver runs a red light and injures you, the full commercial policy still applies.
• UM/UIM coverage — when a third driver hits your rideshare and has little or no insurance. This is what SB 371 cut. Before 2026, a passenger hit by an uninsured driver could reach up to $1 million through the rideshare policy. Today the ceiling is $60,000 per person — an amount a single serious hospitalization in San Francisco can exhaust.

The law also shifted responsibility for maintaining that coverage to the rideshare companies themselves rather than individual drivers, which changes how claims get presented. And SB 371 was passed alongside Assembly Bill 1340, which created a framework for rideshare drivers to organize and bargain collectively while remaining independent contractors under Proposition 22. The package lowered costs for the companies. For injured people, it lowered the safety net — and made the coverage analysis in every rideshare case more consequential, not less.

Why Your Own Auto Policy Matters More Than Ever

Here is the practical consequence of the 2026 change: when the at-fault driver is someone other than your rideshare driver, the rideshare UM/UIM layer may no longer come close to covering a serious injury. That makes every other available policy critical. Your own personal auto policy’s UM/UIM coverage may apply even though you were a passenger in someone else’s car. A resident relative’s policy may apply. In some cases more than one policy can be pursued. A surprising number of people carry this coverage for years and never use it because no one told them to look — I have secured recoveries through this exact route, including the $750,000 UIM arbitration result. Finding and sequencing every layer of coverage is now one of the most valuable things a lawyer does in a rideshare case.

Who Gets Hurt in a Rideshare Crash

Rideshare cases are not only about passengers. The coverage analysis matters for everyone the vehicle can hurt:

• Passengers, who ride trusting a stranger’s driving and have strong claims when it goes wrong.
• Other drivers, struck by a rideshare vehicle — including a classic rear-end collision when a driver is distracted by the app between pings.
• People on foot or on a bike, whether hit as a pedestrian in a crosswalk or struck while riding, where cyclist injury representation overlaps with rideshare liability.
• Rideshare drivers themselves, injured by another negligent motorist while working — a group hit especially hard by the SB 371 UM/UIM reduction, since the negligent drivers who hit them are so often uninsured.

The app-based delivery economy raises the same questions in a different wrapper. The coverage-period logic in this post is a close cousin of the analysis in the commercial truck and delivery vehicle cases I handle, where Amazon Flex, DoorDash, and similar platforms create their own coverage gaps.

Why Rideshare Insurers Fight Over Which Policy Applies

Here is the trap. Because so much money turns on the app status, insurers point fingers. The driver’s personal insurer denies the claim, arguing the driver was working — a business-use exclusion. The rideshare company’s insurer argues the driver was in a lower-coverage period, or was not really on the app at all. After SB 371, there is a new front: whether the claim is a liability claim (against the $1 million policy) or a UM/UIM claim (against the reduced limits). The injured person gets caught in the middle while the companies dispute who pays and under which cap.

Resolving this takes evidence: the trip data, app logs, GPS records, and timestamps that establish exactly which period was active and who caused the crash. Securing that data quickly, before it is buried, is one of the first things I do. It is the same technical coverage analysis that makes these among the more complex matters a San Francisco car accident lawyer handles — and getting it wrong can leave a seriously injured person staring at a fraction of the coverage they were owed.

Prop 22, AB 1340, and the Gig-Driver Question

California’s Proposition 22 classifies app-based drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, which the companies use to limit their own exposure. AB 1340, the 2026 companion to SB 371, gives drivers a path to organize and bargain collectively — but it did not change that classification, and it did not change an injured person’s rights. Neither law takes away your right to recover from the at-fault party and every applicable policy. For a rideshare driver hurt on the job, the picture includes the Prop 22 occupational accident coverage as well, and the interplay between that benefit, the company policies, and your own coverage deserves a careful review before you accept anything.

The Injuries These Crashes Cause

Rideshare collisions in a dense city produce the same catastrophic injuries as any high-energy crash: traumatic brain injury that a normal CT scan can miss, spinal cord injury and disc damage, fractures, and the soft-tissue injuries that adrenaline hides at the scene. I have built my practice on documenting these injuries fully — it is what separates a full recovery from a fast, cheap settlement, especially now that some coverage ceilings are lower. When the injury is serious and the available limits are contested, the depth of the medical record is your leverage.

How a Rideshare Injury Claim Actually Proceeds

A rideshare case runs on two parallel tracks, and both start immediately. The first is evidence: preserving the trip record, requesting the app data and any dashcam or telematics footage, obtaining the police report, and locking in witness accounts before memories fade. The second is medical: getting you to the right providers, making sure delayed-onset injuries are diagnosed and documented, and building the record that supports the full value of the harm — not the snapshot from the emergency room on day one.

Only after both tracks are developed does the claim get presented — to the correct insurer, under the correct policy, with the coverage period established by data rather than by the adjuster’s assumption. If the insurers dispute the period, undervalue the injury, or hide behind the SB 371 limits when the liability policy should apply, the case is prepared to be filed and tried. Insurers price a claim based on whether the lawyer across the table actually tries cases; a demand backed by a real trial threat is worth more than the same demand without one. Most rideshare claims resolve without a lawsuit, but the ones that resolve well are the ones that were ready for it.

One more timing point: California’s general two-year personal injury deadline applies to most rideshare crashes, but shorter deadlines can apply in special situations — and the app data you need has no legal obligation to wait for you. The practical deadline for preserving a rideshare case is measured in weeks, not years.

What to Do After an Uber or Lyft Accident in San Francisco

• Call 911 and get medical care, even if you feel fine — rideshare passengers often feel “okay” on adrenaline and discover the injury days later.
• Screenshot your trip in the app — the route, driver, vehicle, and timestamps — before anything is deleted or overwritten.
• Photograph the scene, all vehicles, and your injuries, and report the crash inside the app.
• Get the rideshare driver’s and any other driver’s license, insurance, and contact information, plus witness names.
• Do not give a recorded statement to any insurer — the driver’s, the company’s, or a third party’s — before speaking with an attorney.
• Do not assume the old $1 million rules apply. Since January 1, 2026, the coverage picture depends on who was at fault and which policy responds — have it analyzed before you value your claim.

Why a San Francisco Rideshare Accident Lawyer Matters in 2026

Rideshare cases are won by nailing down coverage and refusing to let insurers pass the buck — and the 2026 rules raised the stakes of getting that analysis right. As a trial-tested attorney since 2009 with a 9-for-9 verdict record, I secure the trip and app data, establish the correct coverage period, determine whether the liability policy or the reduced UM/UIM limits control, and pursue every applicable layer — including personal UM/UIM protection injured riders often do not know they have. That is what rideshare accident representation has to mean after SB 371. It is the same preparation I bring to the car accident cases I handle across the city: build the case as if it will be tried, because that is what produces full settlements.

Many of San Francisco’s rideshare drivers — and many of the riders — are Spanish speakers. I provide bilingual representation in English and Spanish directly, with no interpreter and no handoff. If Spanish is your language, my page for abogado de accidentes de Uber y Lyft explains these same rights, and as an abogado de lesiones personales en San Francisco I handle the entire case in Spanish, from consultation to settlement. Your immigration status does not affect your right to recover, and everything you tell me is protected.

Talk to an Uber and Lyft Accident Lawyer for Free

If you were hurt in an Uber or Lyft crash in San Francisco — as a passenger, another driver, a pedestrian, a cyclist, or a rideshare driver — do not let the insurers decide your case among themselves under rules written in their favor. Call (415) 851-4557 or schedule a free case review today. There is no fee unless I recover for you. Se habla español — consultas gratuitas y confidenciales, directamente conmigo.