HCBA Lawyer Magazine Vol. 29, No. 2 | Page 58

uBers, lyfts and taXis - oh My!
Trial & litigation Section
Chair: Katherine Yanes – Kynes, Markman & Felman, P.A.
Make sure you’ve got an
accurate picture of the
coverage available to
your client if an automobile
crash involves an uber,
I
f a client came to you
describing a car crash with an
“amateur cabdriver” ten years
ago, you probably would’ve
wondered about the client’s mental
state, but today, you wouldn’t bat an
eye. What if your client is one of
these “amateur cabdrivers”? While
you want to make sure your client
gets the treatment he or she needs,
you must make sure you’ve got an
accurate picture of the insurance
coverage available if an automobile
crash involves an Uber, Lyft, or
taxicab, which isn’t always clear.
Transportation network
companies (TNCs) 1 like Uber and
Lyft have become commonplace
to anyone with a credit card and a
smart phone. By 2017, Uber had
completed four billion rides since
it was founded eight years earlier,
while its competitor, Lyft, doubled
its annual growth to 375.5 million
rides in 2017 alone. 2 That’s a lot
of miles driven. And it doesn’t
even include “old” ride sharing
like taxicabs, which still can be a
price-competitive solution over the
new TNCs. 3
All three, however, often involve
drivers using unfamiliar roads,
which can lead to crashes. Even
though litigators typically know
what to do with taxicab cases, they
don’t necessarily know what cover-
ages are applicable for TNCs
because of the new and changing
legal requirements.
56
lyft and/or taxicab.
© Can Stock Photo / makidotvn
In 2017, Florida began to regulate
TNCs on a statewide level with the
adoption of section 627.748, Florida
Statutes. Section 627.748 sets forth
financial, as well as regulatory,
requirements for TNC drivers,
either while giving prearranged
rides or while the application is just
engaged, mirroring other coverages
put into place in other states. 4
If a TNC driver causes a crash,
there is a significant difference in
insurance coverage for bodily injury
if the driver is logged in to the
TNC 5 versus when the driver is
engaged in a prearranged ride. 6
But even within the TNCs, there
are different coverages beyond
the minimum requirements. Lyft
maintains personal injury protection
(PIP) coverage 7 while Uber does
not. 8 Both TNCs carry uninsured
motorist (UM) coverage for
occupants on a paying fare, but
Lyft maintains some UM coverage
for its drivers who have the
application on but have no riders.
Contrast these coverages with
traditional taxicabs, which have
only one level of mandatory bodily
injury coverage in far lower
amounts 9 than a TNC driver
engaged in a prearranged ride, but
higher than when the TNC driver
is just logged on. And taxicabs do
not maintain any PIP coverage. 10
What does the bevy of coverages
mean to you as a representative of
an injured party when dealing with
a TNC? If your client was injured
in a crash — either as a passenger
in a TNC or as an occupant of
another vehicle — with a TNC
driver, it’s reassuring that there
will be some form of bodily injury
or UM coverage. But it will be
important to ascertain which TNC
was involved (as many drivers will
use both applications at the same
time) and, most important, what
phase of work the TNC driver
was in at the time of the crash.
§ 627.748(1)(e), Fla. Stat.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/
bizcarson/2018/01/16/lyft-doubled-
rides-in-2017/#49d9ea717d6b.
3 https://www.consumerreports.org/
personal-finance/uber-vs-taxi-which-is-
cheaper/.
4 http://time.com/money/4482057/
heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-
insuring-yourself-with-uber/.
5 § 627.748(7)(b)(1)(a), Fla. Stat.
6 § 627.748(7)(c)(1)(a), Fla. Stat.
7 https://lyft-assets.s3.amazonaws.
com/helpcenter/coi/florida.pdf.
8 https://ubernewsroomapi.10upcdn.
com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/
FL_9.1.18-1.pdf.
9 § 324.032(1)(a),
Fla. Stat.
10 § 627.733
(1)(b), Fla. Stat.
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Author: Marc J.
Semago - FL
Legal Group
NOV - DEC 2018
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HCBA LAWYER