Plaintiff-side auto practitioners in California opened the year facing a coverage structure that quietly rewired how rideshare injury cases get valued. Senate Bill 371 cut the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that transportation network companies must carry during active trips from $1 million to $60,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence. The liability layer that pays when the Uber or Lyft driver is at fault still sits at $1 million. The cut lands only on the UM/UIM side, which is exactly the side that matters when a phantom driver or an underinsured third party causes the crash.
For firms that built rideshare intake around the old million-dollar floor, the math has changed. A passenger with a fractured acetabulum and a six-figure surgical lien used to have a clear primary source. That source now tops out at $60,000, and the claimant's own auto policy becomes the layer that carries the case.
What actually changed under SB 371
The three-period framework that governs TNC coverage survives intact. Period 1 runs from app-on to ride acceptance, Period 2 covers the trip to pickup, and Period 3 covers the passenger in the car. Before 2026, Periods 2 and 3 carried $1 million in UM/UIM. SB 371 leaves the $1 million liability coverage in place but drops UM/UIM to the state floor.
That distinction controls case strategy. Liability coverage answers for the rideshare driver's own negligence. UM/UIM answers when someone else, an uninsured hit-and-run driver or a minimally insured at-fault motorist, causes the harm. In dense urban corridors where a large share of at-fault drivers carry only $15,000 limits or nothing at all, the UM/UIM layer is the one that pays. The Legislature cut the layer plaintiffs rely on most.
Where the claimant's own policy comes in
California UM/UIM coverage follows the person, not just the vehicle. A passenger injured in an Uber generally keeps access to the UM/UIM coverage on their personal auto policy, even though they were not in their own car. That coverage now does heavy lifting it was never designed to do.
The stacking question is whether the claimant can reach both the TNC's $60,000 and their own UM/UIM limits, and in what order. California does not permit stacking of multiple policies in the broad sense some states allow, but it does allow excess coverage to sit above primary coverage. The working argument is that the TNC policy is primary for the passenger during Period 3, and the claimant's personal UM/UIM responds as excess once the TNC limit exhausts. Order of exhaustion matters, because the UIM offset language in a personal policy can reduce or wipe out the excess recovery if the carrier credits the TNC payment against its own limit rather than sitting above it.
The offset fight carriers will pick
Expect personal UM/UIM carriers to read their offset clauses aggressively now that the TNC primary is small. A carrier with a $100,000 UIM limit and a credit-style offset will argue it owes only the difference between its limit and all other available coverage, which after a $60,000 TNC payment leaves $40,000. A claimant facing a $250,000 surgical and lien stack gets squeezed in the middle.
Two documents decide this fight early. Pull the declarations page and the full policy form, not the summary, because the offset mechanism lives in the UIM endorsement language. Then confirm whether the policy uses a true excess difference-in-limits structure or a reducing-clause offset. The recovery ceiling on the whole case often turns on that single clause.
For practitioners who also handle the lien side, the shrinking primary layer makes early lien posture critical. A provider holding a six-figure lien against a case now capped near policy limits needs to understand the new ceiling before treatment escalates. See our lien-resolution coverage for reduction strategy under compressed limits.
Intake and valuation changes
- Capture every UM/UIM policy in the household at intake, not just the named claimant's. Resident relatives may supply additional UM/UIM under household coverage.
- Request the TNC coverage-period confirmation in writing early. The carrier's period determination drives which limit applies, and disputes over whether the app was in Period 2 or Period 3 now carry real dollars.
- Reset client expectations on phantom-vehicle and hit-and-run claims. Cases that once cleared liens comfortably under a million-dollar floor may now need the personal policy to carry most of the value.
The bigger picture for 2026
SB 371 did not arrive alone. A separate Uber-backed ballot initiative expected on the November 2026 ballot would cap contingency fees at 25 percent and limit medical reimbursement to government rates across all motor vehicle cases, not only rideshare. Read together, the statute and the initiative point at the same target, which is the economics of the third-party rideshare claim. Firms that handle volume rideshare work should model both scenarios now.
The near-term takeaway is narrower. Until carriers and courts sort out the excess-versus-offset question, treat the claimant's personal UM/UIM as the spine of the rideshare case, not the backstop. The coverage chart that worked in 2025 understates exposure to the claimant and overstates the primary recovery. For related coverage on comparative fault and coverage stacking in non-rideshare collisions, see our auto-accident litigation archive, and for commercial-policy interplay in mixed-vehicle crashes, see our truck and motorcycle coverage.