Rideshare crashes look like ordinary collisions and are not, because the money behind them moves in steps. The same crash, with the same injuries and the same driver, can have $25,000 of coverage available or $1,000,000. What decides it is what the driver's app was doing at the moment of impact.

Montana Sets This by Statute

MCA § 69-12-343 sets the insurance a transportation network carrier and its drivers must maintain in Montana. It divides the day into periods, and the coverage in each is very different.

The Three Periods

The app is off. The driver is a private motorist like anyone else, and only their personal auto policy is in play. Montana's minimum liability limits under MCA § 61-6-103 are $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $20,000 property damage. A serious injury can exhaust that before the first surgery is billed.

The app is on and the driver is waiting for a request. The statute requires primary coverage of at least $50,000 for death and bodily injury per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property damage. Better, still modest.

The driver has accepted a ride or has a passenger aboard. The requirement rises to at least $1,000,000 for death, bodily injury, and property damage. This is the band that changes what a serious claim is worth.

The statute also provides that where the driver's own insurance has lapsed or falls short of the required limits, the carrier's insurance responds from the first dollar and has the duty to defend. That matters, because a driver's personal policy may well exclude commercial passenger carrying.

Which Period Was It? The Evidence Is Not Yours

Here is the practical problem. The only complete record of what the app was doing sits with the company, not with you and not really with the driver. A driver at the scene may say they were between rides. They may be right, they may be mistaken, and they may be aware of what the difference is worth.

So the things worth capturing at the scene are the ones that pin the period down independently:

  • Photograph the windscreen and dash, including any lit rideshare beacon or placard.
  • If you were the passenger, screenshot your own trip before anything else. It timestamps the ride and names the driver.
  • Note whether anyone else was in the car, and whether they were dropped off or picked up.
  • Get the driver's name and plate, not only the insurance card, which may be a personal policy that is not the one that pays.
  • Ask the responding officer to record that a rideshare app was involved, so the report reflects it.

These records can be requested later through the claim, but a screenshot taken in the first ten minutes is worth a great deal more than a dispute about it six months on.

This Is Not Only About Passengers

People assume these policies exist to protect the person in the back seat. They are liability policies, so they respond to the harm the driver causes. If you were in the other car, on a bike, or walking when a rideshare driver hit you, the same periods and the same figures decide what is available to you. Most people in that position never think to ask whether the car that hit them was working at the time, and it is one of the more consequential questions in the case.

Our Uber and Lyft accident page explains how we approach these, and if the insurer is being difficult about which policy applies, our insurance claims page covers that fight. We work throughout Missoula and Western Montana.