Uber in Waterloo Region

[ookpik]

Does Uber self-insure, or do they have a real insurance provider?

From what I've read in the media Uber insists it provides its drivers with coverage that the drivers' own personal auto insurance doesn't cover. They haven't revealed the details, i.e. of the coverage or who actually provides it (self-insured or through some blanket policy) on the grounds that this is proprietary to them. 

[As an aside I can't see how they can continue to treat this as confidential in the long term. It will have to come out as governments move in to regulate Uber and similar services.]

And a settlement does not mean that the company accepts liability. At this stage, they might be willing to settle cases like this to avoid added publicity.

Of course. None of this is unique to Uber. It's standard in liabilty cases. While details were sketchy my reason for posting this article was to show that Uber did pay even when the driver was merely logged into their app but didn't actually have an Uber passenger in the vehicle.

It seems like a no-brainer that, if you are killed by a driver employed by a company to drive, the company shares in the negligence and liability. But this company insists that they don't employ their drivers, but rather they are "independent operators" (or whatever terminology), so who knows how liability is shared.

All drivers must carry at least personal auto insurance. Those policies explicitly exclude commercial, for-pay usage. Since the driver was logged in the Uber app and thus willing to accept paying passengers I'd think most insurers would use that to deny coverage. But in this case there was a settlement. So either the driver's insurer couldn't use that argument or Uber paid (or some combination.) The point is that the plaintiff got paid regardless.

Again, this is an evolving area. It will eventually get sorted out as more cases come up and get resolved. The same thing happened and is evolving with the Internet itself, e.g. taxation, privacy, intellectual property, hacking, etc.

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On a different tangent...

I can understand why taxi company owners and taxi medallion owners might be against Uber. After all Uber could cost them a lucrative business.

But why aren't taxi drivers abandoning conventional taxi companies and joining Uber in droves? People who drive for Uber report making good money. So you'd think existing taxi drivers would abandon their tyrannical masters and opt for what's supposed to be more lucrative. And yet the media keeps publishing sob stories about taxi drivers who stand to lose their livelihoods in an Uber-dominated world.

What am I missing?