After an Uber car hits you or your uber ride is struck while you’re a passenger, you may wonder if you’ll need to file an insurance claim. If you are injured, the answer is yes and the bad news is, you might have to file more than one insurance claim.
Catching an Uber in California is a standard choice when people want to get out of a stressful drive, avoid having to find parking, and bypass paying expensive car payments, insurance, and taxes. It’s a good deal for some, but Uber drivers also clog already crowded freeways and because of their jobs, they aren’t always paying attention to traffic. They are a traffic hazard in many cases.
Securing Help for Uber Accident Victims
Uber accidents can create a complex insurance mess for injured victims. Those hurt may just want to pay their emergency room bills and recoup some of their lost wages at work. Sadly, they may have to deal with three different insurance companies right off the bat. That’s not to mention the worldwide corporate giant that is Uber. They will have their own lawyers complicating things.
This barrage of insurance rejections, lowball settlement offers, and blame avoidance can stress you out just as your trying to recover from a serious injury. Don’t let this accident affect your physical health further. Contact an Uber Rideshare Accident Lawyer and find out how to hold Uber responsible for every aspect of your recovery from the time it happened and over the months of recovery ahead.
Filing Claims Against Uber and Uber Drivers After Accidents
After you’ve suffered an injury in an accident caused by an Uber driver, it should be a straight path forward to gaining financial help from Uber. That’s generally not what happens though. Victims can be forced to file three different claims or more after an accident.
Uber has fought to keep its California employees classified as independent contractors and has so far succeeded. For injured victims, this means that Uber can first send you to their employees’ personal insurance provider to seek help.
Here’s a breakdown of how these injury claims usually play out for victims:
- The Driver’s Insurance: Since drivers aren’t full-fledged employees of Uber they can be held responsible for the accidents they cause. Your injury claim must first be filed against the driver’s policy. Be prepared, because this claim can quickly be rejected because insurance companies don’t always cover their policyholders when they are working for a rideshare. It’s also important to note that an Uber passenger in an accident could also end up petitioning another driver for money if the Uber driver isn’t found at fault. You’d have to contact the insurance representatives for every other driver found responsible.
- Uber’s Insurance: At this point, you may have been rejected by the driver’s car insurance company or you may have not gotten enough support due to the driver’s insurance coverage limits. Now you can try to hold the Uber Company responsible, but it’s another adventure you may not like. Uber provides up to a million dollars in liability insurance for drivers and their victims, but that’s only if the accident happened under certain circumstances. If an accident happens while a driver is on the way to pick up a passenger or the passenger is in the car, you can make a claim against the million-dollar policy. During other phases of the employee’s shift, if an accident occurs the coverage available may be much less or zero.
- Your Uninsured Driver Coverage: The one option you may not have expected. You are hurt in an accident caused by an Uber driver and end up relying on your own insurance agent. If you’ve been rejected by Uber and its driver’s insurance, you can file a claim against the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage on your policy. It’s often still a struggle to get all of your damages paid for, even with your own insurance company on the case. They will still treat you unfairly and look to get you to sign off on as little compensation as possible. Big insurance companies run ads about how caring they are, but the truth is, without a lawyer of your own watching over them like a hawk, they will try to rob you of compensation.
Rideshare Insurance Tactics to Beware of in California
As you may have guessed, accidents involving rideshare companies can be complex cases. Just sorting out who you can demand support from and when can take a legal expert. Your attorney’s experience with insurance companies and corporate lawyers will be a valuable safeguard as you recover.
Insurance companies like to purposely delay their response to your claim. Why do they do this? They want to get you as desperate as possible while you watch your hospital bills and other monthly expenses go unpaid. Then they slide a “lowball offer” your way in the hopes that you’ll accept whatever they send over. This offer may not be enough to cover even half of your medical expenses. Your attorney will know how to respond to this bad faith treatment.
Insurance companies may also look to shift the blame in an accident to you if you were driving the other vehicle involved. Despite police reports that found you innocent, agents and adjusters could look into your driving records to try to prove you’re an unsafe driver. They could also seek to get recorded statements from you and use your comments against you later. If you have a personal injury attorney on your side, he or she will never allow you to make these statements and will handle all communications with Uber’s representatives.
Contact an Uber Rideshare Lawyer Serving California Victims
You may be a driver or pedestrian struck by an Uber employee. You could be a passenger in the backseat when the Uber vehicle is in an accident. You may also be an Uber driver injured on the job and not happy with the support (or lack of support) Uber is providing. If you are a victim dealing with a serious injury contact us for a free, no-obligation case consultation.
Our Rideshare Accident Attorneys make sure the victims of an Uber-involved accident never face their physical and financial recovery alone.
