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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

No money changes hands

This might be a small detail that matters big if you start driving for Lyft. What does your personal auto insurance policy cover if a paying passenger gets hurt in an accident in your car?

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Lyft has a $1M insurance policy to cover their drivers. Here's an incident: http://www.cnet.com/news/after-fatal-lyft-crash-insurance-qu...

How the hell can they afford that?

For one, it has a $2,500 deductible.

It is also only active during a Lyft ride.

My liability portion is $250,000 each person / $500,000 each accident and State Farm only wants $30 a month for it.

That's a commercial rider on your personal policy?

I see what you're saying, no, that's just the personal policy.

"Commercial" is only expensive because higher mileage is higher risk. If you aren't doing a lot of miles per year, it won't be more expensive. Lyft's insurer probably has some mileage math worked into the premium. Or Lyft self insures and knows exactly how much mileage they are covering.

IIRC from what I've seen Lyft issues an on the spot insurance policy for each individual ride.

That's a nice chunk but insufficient nowadays. (The 24-year old in that article might've been able to make several $million in his remaining career.) The Lyft driver could still end up on the hook.

It's certainly possible, but it's unlikely. The Lyft driver's own assets are likely small, and most lawyers suing the driver would rather settle for an amount within the $1 million insurance policy, rather than risk getting nothing by going to court to try to get more than the insurance policy.

Even many doctors don't have malpractice insurance above $1 million (depending on speciality and state) -- most policies are $100K-$300K/claim, $1MM-$3MM/all claims (http://jop.ascopubs.org/content/3/5/274.full). So Lyft is providing more liability insurance than many doctors carry.

If you're demanding absolute 0% risk for the Lyft driver financially, this would not cut it, but very little anywhere is absolutely no risk.

So about 3 days in an American hospital?

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