After a crash involving an Uber or Lyft, the question that decides which insurance applies is one most people have never thought about: what the driver was doing in the app at the exact moment of the collision.
Tennessee law layers different coverage over a rideshare driver depending on whether the app was off, on and waiting for a request, or engaged with a trip. The difference between those states can be the difference between a minimum policy and a million dollars of coverage.
Sorting out what the app showed at that moment, and reaching the coverage that goes with it, is the heart of a rideshare accident case.
Rideshare crashes occur throughout the Harriman area, including Exit 347 on I-40, US-27, Roane Street, and various roads across Roane County as drivers transport passengers to and from Knoxville, McGhee Tyson Airport, and the Smokies.
Roane County's location along the I-40 corridor connects Knoxville with Nashville and tourist routes to the mountains, so rideshare traffic includes both local and longer trips. Crash involvement may include visiting drivers, out-of-town passengers, and complex coverage questions that follow a rideshare vehicle wherever it travels.
Fox & Farmer helps those injured in rideshare accidents across Roane County by documenting what the app recorded, ensuring proper coverage, and pursuing legal recovery. They offer a free initial consultation and work on a no-fee basis unless there’s a successful recovery.
The reason app status matters so much is that a rideshare driver is covered by different insurance at different moments. A personal automobile policy may exclude coverage while the driver is logged onto a TNC network or engaged in a prearranged ride, depending on the policy terms.
Depending on the policy terms, a personal insurer may deny a claim for a crash that occurs while the driver is working for the app. What fills the gap depends entirely on how far along the trip the driver was.
Tennessee law, following the model most states adopted, divides a rideshare driver's time into phases and assigns different coverage to each.
This framework exists because the early growth of rideshare exposed a real gap: a driver working for an app was neither a covered personal driver nor clearly a commercial one, and injured people fell through the cracks between the two.
The phased system was designed to close that gap by guaranteeing a defined level of coverage at each stage of a trip, and understanding it is what lets an injured person find the coverage the law intended to provide.
The phased system was designed to close that gap by guaranteeing a defined level of coverage at each stage of a trip, and understanding it is what lets an injured person find the coverage the law intended to provide.
When the driver is offline, Tennessee’s special TNC insurance requirements tied to being logged onto the network or engaged in a prearranged ride do not apply. The available coverage then depends on the applicable policies and facts.
When the app is on but the driver is waiting for a ride request, a middle tier applies: the personal policy usually excludes the commercial use, and Tennessee requires the applicable coverage during this period. The required insurance may be maintained by the driver, the transportation network company, or a combination of both.
Once the driver has accepted a request and is on the way to the rider, and through the time the passenger is in the car, Tennessee requires at least $1 million in coverage for this period. The required insurance may be maintained by the driver, the transportation network company, or a combination of both.
Establishing which of these states the driver was in is therefore the first task in the case, because it determines which insurer is responsible and how much coverage stands behind the claim.
A passenger injured during a trip, for instance, is covered by the one-million-dollar policy, while a pedestrian struck by a driver merely logged on and waiting may face the far lower contingent coverage, even though the crash looked the same.
The practical stakes are high. Imagine two nearly identical crashes on US-27: in the first, the driver had just accepted a ride and was heading to pick up a passenger, so the company's million-dollar coverage applies; in the second, the driver was sitting in a parking lot with the app on but no ride accepted, so only the lower contingent coverage may respond, and only if the driver's personal insurer denies the claim first. The injured people may have identical injuries and identical bills, yet the coverage available to them differs by a wide margin based solely on a status the app recorded in the background.
Because the coverage shifts as a trip progresses, it helps to see the periods side by side. The table below sets out each phase and what generally applies under Tennessee law.
| Period | Driver's activity in the app | Coverage that generally applies |
|---|---|---|
| Offline | App off, driving personally | The driver's personal auto policy only |
| Waiting | App on, no request accepted | Contingent liability, lower limits (about $50k/$100k/$25k) |
| En route | Request accepted, heading to rider | The rideshare company's $1 million commercial liability |
| Passenger aboard | Rider in the vehicle | The rideshare company's $1 million commercial liability |
The sharpest practical problem arises in the waiting period. Tennessee’s transportation-network-company insurance law requires at least $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property damage while a driver is logged on but not engaged in a prearranged ride, and at least $1 million while engaged in a prearranged ride. During the logged-on waiting period, Tennessee requires the statutory TNC coverage to be in place. Coverage maintained by the TNC under the statute is not dependent on the personal automobile insurer first denying the claim.
The result is that two insurers may each argue the other is responsible, delaying payment to an injured person while the dispute is sorted out.
Once the driver accepts a request, the picture is clearer: from that acceptance through the drop-off, the company's one-million-dollar commercial policy is in force.
Knowing exactly where in this sequence the crash occurred is what determines the coverage, and that is established from the trip data the app itself logs.
Establishing fault in a rideshare crash rests on the same foundation as any vehicle case: Tennessee's modified comparative fault rule from McIntyre v. Balentine, under which an injured person recovers only if found less than 50 percent at fault, with the recovery reduced by the share assigned.
A rideshare passenger is almost never at fault, having no control over the vehicle, so a passenger's case is usually about establishing which driver caused the crash and reaching the coverage that applies.
Where another motorist caused the crash, that driver's insurance is in play as well, and where the rideshare driver was at fault, the applicable rideshare coverage tier responds.
Many rideshare crashes involve more than one vehicle, and the fault may be shared, so a passenger's recovery can draw on both the at-fault outside driver's policy and the rideshare coverage, in whatever proportions the fault is assigned.
Identifying every vehicle and policy involved, and how the comparative fault is likely to be apportioned among them, is part of making sure no available source of recovery is left out.
Rideshare companies are designed to minimize their direct liability. Uber and Lyft categorize drivers as independent contractors instead of employees, allowing them to claim they are not responsible for a driver's negligence in the same way an employer would be. The million-dollar coverage is provided through the companies' insurance policies, not through legal action against the company as an employer.
That distinction rarely changes what an injured passenger can recover when the high-tier coverage applies, but it shapes how the claim is brought, and the company's insurer defends these claims as vigorously as any other, scrutinizing injuries and disputing coverage tiers.
The waiting period is where the independent-contractor structure and the layered coverage cause the most trouble. Although the personal insurer may deny the claim by pointing to its commercial-use exclusion, the TNC-required coverage is not conditioned on first obtaining a denial from the personal policy. Disputes sometimes arise about which insurer is responsible, but Tennessee law requires the TNC coverage to be in place during the logged-on period.
Cutting through that standoff usually requires the app data to fix the driver's exact status and a clear demand to each insurer, and it is a large part of why these cases benefit from being handled as the coverage dispute they are, rather than as a simple car accident.
The single most valuable piece of evidence in cutting through those disputes is the app's own record, which timestamps the driver's status and the trip. That data, along with the crash evidence, is best secured early before questions about the driver's status can be muddied.
Compensation in a serious rideshare case must capture the full extent of the harm, drawn from whichever coverage tier applies. Tennessee law allows recovery for economic damages, the measurable financial losses, and non-economic damages, the human losses of pain, disability, and a changed life. The injuries can be as serious as in any Harriman car accident or other Harriman personal injury claim, and the available coverage, whether a low contingent tier or the full million-dollar policy, often shapes what can actually be recovered.
The economic damages include past and future medical care, the income lost during recovery, and the lost earning capacity where an injury prevents a return to work.
The non-economic damages account for the pain, the permanent disability or disfigurement, and the loss of the life a person was able to live before.
In Harriman, a person seriously hurt in a rideshare crash is often treated first at Roane Medical Center, the Covenant Health hospital on Roane Medical Center Drive, with its 24-hour emergency department. The most serious injuries are stabilized and transferred to the Level I trauma center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, about forty-five minutes to the east.
Where a rideshare crash takes a life, the family's Harriman wrongful death case pursues the responsible parties and the applicable coverage while measuring a far heavier loss.
Get medical care promptly, both for your health and because the medical record documents the injury and ties it to the crash. Some injuries may not be fully apparent at the scene, so prompt evaluation protects both your recovery and your claim, and following through on recommended treatment creates the record of what the injury has cost.
There is one step particular to rideshare cases worth taking when you are able: capture the trip information from the app while it is in front of you.
Screenshots of the trip, the driver's name and vehicle, and the ride status preserve the very facts that determine which coverage applies, facts that can be harder to pin down later.
Make sure the crash is reported so an official record exists, and gather the names and contact information of the driver, any other drivers, and any witnesses.
Be cautious with the insurers, which in a rideshare case may include several pointing at one another: do not give a recorded statement or accept an early settlement before you have advice.
Then reach out to a lawyer promptly, because the app data and the crash evidence are best secured early, and Tennessee's one-year deadline can arrive faster than expected.
As a passenger during a trip, you are covered by at least $1 million in liability coverage, as required by Tennessee law, from the moment the driver accepts the ride until the drop-off. This coverage may be maintained by the driver, the transportation network company, or a combination of both. Whether your own driver or another motorist caused the crash determines which insurer responds, but as a passenger you almost never bear any fault, and that high-tier coverage is generally available.
Yes, significantly. In the waiting period, Tennessee law requires at least $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property damage in coverage, which may be maintained by the driver, the transportation network company, or a combination of both. Because the personal insurer usually excludes commercial use, this period often produces disputes between insurers that establishing the driver's exact status helps resolve.
It can. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may come into play, particularly where the at-fault driver's coverage is inadequate.
As a rideshare passenger, you may also have access to the company's uninsured-motorist coverage in some situations. Identifying every applicable policy, given which coverage tier was in force, is part of reaching a full recovery.
One area to watch is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage for rideshare passengers, which the companies have narrowed in recent years. Where it once mirrored the high liability limit, the coverage a rider receives when an outside uninsured driver causes the crash may now be far lower. This makes the passenger's own auto policy, if they have one, an important additional source.
Sorting out which uninsured-motorist coverage applies, the company's or the passenger's own, is part of the same coverage analysis that the driver's activity in the app begins.
The rideshare app logs the driver's activity and the trip with timestamps, and that data is the clearest proof of which coverage period applied.
It is one reason to act early and to preserve any screenshots you took, because that record is central to resolving coverage disputes.
The companies hold the authoritative trip records, and obtaining them sometimes requires a formal request or legal process, which is another reason to involve a lawyer early.
A further wrinkle arises because many drivers run more than one rideshare app at once: a driver may be waiting for a request on one platform while logged into another, and pinning down which company's coverage was in force at the moment of the crash can require the records of more than one app.
Usually the recovery comes through the companies' insurance coverage rather than from suing them as an employer, because they classify drivers as independent contractors.
In some circumstances, such as negligent conduct by the company itself, a direct claim may be possible, but in most cases the focus is on reaching the correct coverage tier for what the driver was doing in the app.
You can still recover as long as your share of the fault stays below 50 percent, with the recovery reduced by your share. A passenger is almost never assigned fault, but another driver or even the rideshare driver may share it, and establishing what happened protects the claim.
These claims are handled on a contingency basis, which means there is no fee unless there is a recovery. The first consultation is free, so understanding your options costs nothing.
Harriman spans both Roane and Morgan Counties, so the proper courthouse depends on where the crash occurred. A Roane County case may proceed in Circuit Court at 200 E. Race Street in Kingston, while a Morgan County case may belong in Circuit Court at 415 N. Kingston Street in Wartburg.
From years of experience across Roane County and the wider Knoxville area, our attorneys know how to establish what the app recorded, how the coverage tiers and the rideshare companies' insurers work, and the workings of the local courts where a case is filed. Harriman spans both Roane and Morgan Counties, so the proper courthouse depends on where the crash occurred. A Roane County case may proceed in Circuit Court at 200 E. Race Street in Kingston, while a Morgan County case may belong in Circuit Court at 415 N. Kingston Street in Wartburg. Both counties are in the Ninth Judicial District.
A rideshare accident case is won by establishing the driver's app status, reaching the coverage that applies, and documenting the full extent of the harm, and Fox & Farmer builds each case to do all three, securing the app data and crash evidence early and pressing through the disputes the insurers raise. The goal is a recovery that reflects the true cost of the injury, drawn from the coverage the law makes available.
Because the app data and the evidence are best secured early, the sooner you reach out, the more we are able to do. Your consultation is free, and you owe no fee unless we recover. Contact our team to tell us what happened.
Last reviewed: June 2026
This page was reviewed by Robert L. Widerkehr Jr., licensed in Tennessee since 1988.
This page is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Contacting Fox & Farmer does not create an attorney-client relationship.
