Your Family Auto Policy May Not Provide Coverage for Shared Ride for Money Exposures.

A new trend in urban and suburban communities is the Shared Ride or Uber Type arrangement. In this arrangement, a person signs up to use their personal vehicle to drive others to their destination, similar to a cab.  Then when available, they log on and receive an assignment to drive someone to their destination. The passenger pays the service for the ride, and the driver is compensated by the service.

Please be aware that the Standard Personal Auto Policy has an exclusion applicable to this type of arrangement. The wording is similar to this:

Liability Coverage Does Not Apply...

to any automobile while used as a public or livery conveyance. This exclusion does not apply to car pooling on a share the expense basis.

The insurance industry response so far is that this arrangement does not fit the “car pooling on a share the ride basis”

In college towns  these arrangements can be especially attractive to students looking to earn additional cash.

A similar exposure could develop over the use of the family vehicle for delivery such as pizza or other fast food.

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