One thing changed in 2026 that most pages have not caught up with. The uninsured motorist coverage a rideshare company must carry for passengers fell from $1 million to far less, which shifts where an injured passenger turns when the at-fault driver has no insurance. Any Orange County rideshare lawyer working a current claim starts there, and so does the Law Offices of William W. Bruzzo.

Who Pays After an Uber or Lyft Crash in Orange County?

California sets rideshare insurance by app status under Public Utilities Code § 5433, and the three windows work this way.

• App off. No company coverage applies. The driver’s personal policy stands alone, and California’s minimum financial responsibility since January 2025 is $30,000 for one injured person, $60,000 for more than one, and $15,000 for property damage.
• App on, no ride accepted. Coverage is primary at $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident and $30,000 property damage, with an additional excess layer of at least $200,000 per occurrence that the company itself must carry.
• Ride accepted through drop-off. Company insurance is primary “in the amount of one million dollars ($1,000,000) for death, personal injury, and property damage.”

A passenger is always inside the third window. A pedestrian, a cyclist or another motorist can land in any of them, so app status decides the size of the claim before anyone reaches the question of fault. The same three windows govern a rideshare crash involving a military dependent near Camp Pendleton, and only the claimant changes.

Why the Rideshare Driver’s Own Insurance Will Not Pay

Denial letters from a rideshare driver’s personal insurer confuse people, and the statute explains them. Public Utilities Code § 5434 provides that from log-on until log-off, a participating driver’s personal auto policy “shall not provide any coverage to the participating driver, vehicle owner, or any third party,” unless the policy expressly says otherwise, and that insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify.

The exclusion behind that rule is standard language. The California Department of Insurance notice to rideshare drivers quotes the policy wording, which removes coverage for a vehicle “while it is being used as a public or livery conveyance.”

Injured people burn weeks pursuing the wrong carrier. The claim belongs against the platform’s coverage for the applicable period.

What Changed in 2026 for Rideshare Uninsured Motorist Coverage

California cut the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage rideshare passengers can reach this year. Senate Bill 371, chaptered as Chapter 314 of the Statutes of 2025 and conditioned on the enactment of Assembly Bill 1340, replaced the former $1 million requirement in section 5433(b)(2) with coverage “in the amount of sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) per person and three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) per incident” while a passenger is in the vehicle.

That coverage is still primary over any other uninsured motorist policy and remains solely the company’s obligation. The practical consequence is large. A passenger seriously hurt by an uninsured driver now reaches $300,000 per incident from the platform rather than $1 million, so the claim leans much harder on a passenger’s own uninsured motorist coverage.

What Rideshare Coverage Most Claimants Never Ask About

Three provisions of section 5433 rarely appear in a claims letter.

• The excess layer. Beyond the primary limits in the waiting period, the company must maintain excess coverage of at least $200,000 per occurrence.
• The no-denial-first rule. Company coverage “shall not be dependent on a personal automobile insurance policy first denying a claim.”
• The lapse rule. Where a driver’s own rideshare policy has lapsed or ceased to exist, the company covers the claim beginning with the first dollar.

Neither Uber nor Lyft describes the excess layer on its public insurance page, and Uber’s national page lists $25,000 in property damage during the waiting period where California requires $30,000.

Does It Matter Whether You Were the Passenger, Another Driver, or on Foot?

Claim paths after a rideshare crash differ by who was hurt. A passenger sits inside the $1 million window from the moment the ride is accepted, and reaches the company’s uninsured motorist coverage when the at-fault driver carries nothing. Another motorist or a pedestrian claims against whichever period applied.

Arbitration clauses also cut differently. A rider who accepted the app’s terms agreed to arbitrate claims against the company individually, while a pedestrian or another driver never accepted anything.

Can You Sue Uber or Lyft Directly?

Suing the platform itself is harder than claiming against its insurance. Proposition 22, at Business and Professions Code § 7451, classifies an app-based driver as an independent contractor and not an employee or agent of the network company where four conditions are met, and the California Supreme Court upheld that provision in Castellanos v. State of California in 2024.

Two corrections belong here. The ABC test from Assembly Bill 5 does not settle the question, because Labor Code § 2775 applies that test “for purposes of this code and the Unemployment Insurance Code, and for the purposes of wage orders,” which are wage and hour matters rather than crash liability. And no published California appellate decision has decided whether a rideshare company answers for its driver’s negligent driving.

Section 5433 leaves the door open. It states that the article “does not limit the liability of a transportation network company” for damages above the required insurance coverage.

How Do You Prove Which Coverage Period Applied?

App records decide the period, and the statute makes them obtainable. Public Utilities Code § 5435 requires a company and its insurer to cooperate in a coverage investigation and to provide “the precise times that the participating driver logged on and off” the platform.

Securing those times early decides the case, because the gap between the waiting period and the accepted ride is the gap between $100,000 and $1 million. Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 allows two years from the date of injury, and no shorter government claim deadline applies to these private companies.

Hurt in an Orange County Uber or Lyft Accident? Call a Personal Injury Attorney

Rideshare claims turn on records the company holds and limits the company would rather not explain. The Law Offices of William W. Bruzzo handles Orange County rideshare injury claims from the app log forward, and Will Bruzzo brings more than 30 years of practice and service as a Judge Advocate in the United States Marine Corps to that work. Call 760-307-4233 or contact us online for a free consultation. El Abogado Habla Español.