Maryland’s rideshare floor does not rise when the driver accepts a ride

One security amount covers every period the statute defines

Section 10-405(a)(2) states the security as “up to” $50,000 for any one person and “up to” $100,000 for any two or more persons for bodily injury or death, and “up to” $25,000 for property of others, in addition to interest and costs. Those words are a split limit. They are not a combined single limit of $125,000, and they are not $1 million. The section does not restate a separate uninsured-motorist dollar amount or a separate PIP dollar amount. It cross-references § 19-509 and § 19-505.

COMAR 20.95.01.20B tells the company to make sure company or operator coverage is in effect during period one, period two, and period three, in the amounts and types specified in § 10-405. The regulation does not add a higher dollar amount.

The requirement can be met by the operator, the company, or both. The policy must recognize that the operator is a transportation network operator, or otherwise uses a motor vehicle to transport passengers for hire, and it must cover the operator while providing transportation network services. Insurance maintained under § 10-405 is deemed to satisfy the financial-responsibility requirement of §§ 19-505 and 19-509 and of Title 17, Subtitle 1 of the Transportation Article. Insurance § 19-517(b).

If both the company and the operator maintain the § 10-405 insurance, the operator’s insurance is primary. The company’s insurance must provide the required coverage from the first dollar, and must defend, only if the operator’s coverage has been canceled, has lapsed, or is otherwise not in force. § 10-405(b) and (c). The regulation restates a first-dollar duty, and a defense, if operator-maintained insurance lapses or fails to provide the amount of coverage required. A separate sentence says a company policy may not be written so that it depends on the personal insurer denying the claim first, and a personal policy may not be required to deny first. § 19-517(d)(2). Those rules are not “the company policy is always primary,” and they are not “the company pays only after a denial letter.”

The insurance may be issued by an insurer authorized to do business in Maryland or, solely for insurance the company maintains, by an eligible surplus-lines insurer with an A.M. Best financial strength rating of A- or better. § 10-405(e). A nonadmitted insurer on a company certificate is not, by itself, a defect. Before the operator may accept a request, the company must disclose in writing the coverage and limits it provides, that the operator should ask the personal insurer what if anything the personal policy covers, and that using a financed vehicle for this work without physical-damage coverage may violate the lien contract. § 10-405(f).

Period three ends when the passenger departs the vehicle

The statute’s period-two words are “accepts a ride request” and “is traveling to a predetermined location to pick up the passenger.” Period three is “transports the passenger and continuing until the passenger departs the motor vehicle.”

That ending is the passenger’s departure. It is not the moment the app transaction is marked complete, and it is not a test that keeps the period running until luggage has been unloaded after the passenger has already gotten out. If the facts show the passenger had not yet departed, period three is still running. If the passenger has departed, period three is over even if the driver is still at the curb.

The code does not say which period applies after the driver has arrived and is waiting, before the passenger enters. That interval is not labeled. It should not be filled in by assuming the accepted-ride documents and the waiting-period documents are the same thing.

“Transportation network services” also excludes taxicab service, sedan service, and limousine service, a shared-expense carpool in which the fee does not exceed the driver’s costs, and transportation a nonprofit provides through a volunteer driver and the volunteer’s personal vehicle. § 10-101(n)(2).

The security may also be “other security” the Motor Vehicle Administration may accept under Transportation § 17-103(a)(3). That substitute is narrow: a transportation network company that is an affiliate of a taxicab company and has no fewer than 26 nor more than 300 transportation network operators. It is not the ordinary Uber or Lyft path.

Uber buys $1 million after acceptance. Maryland does not require it.

Uber’s Maryland-listed certificate was printed March 2, 2026. Insurer A on every form is Liberty Surplus Insurance Corporation, NAIC 10725. Every automobile form uses the policy period March 1, 2026 through March 1, 2027. The producer is Aon Risk Insurance Services West, Inc. The certificate face does not print the words “State of Maryland.” The state identification is Uber’s certificates index. The 50/100/25 liability limit and the 30/60/15 uninsured limit track Maryland’s transportation-network floor and Transportation § 17-103, rather than a generic national sentence standing alone. Uber Maryland certificate of liability insurance.

Three forms are in that file:

• Available and waiting. Policy ASE-665-067247-756, certificate number 570118117750. The insureds are Rasier LLC, Rasier-CA LLC, Rasier-DC LLC, and Rasier-PA LLC. Covered autos are passenger autos used by a driver who is logged into the digital network, available to receive requests, and who has not accepted any request. Liability is $50,000 bodily injury per person, $100,000 bodily injury per accident, and $25,000 property damage. The description states that uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is included at $30,000 / $60,000 / $15,000.
• After acceptance. Policy ASE-665-067247-766, certificate number 570118117751. Same insureds and the same insurer. Covered autos are those for which the driver has logged and recorded acceptance and is en route to the pickup or traveling from the pickup to the final destination. Liability is a $1,000,000 combined single limit. The uninsured and underinsured sentence is the same 30/60/15 sentence. It is not limited to the time the passenger is in the car, and it is not $1 million of uninsured coverage.
• Physical damage on the same policy number, certificate number 570118117752. The insured on this form is printed as Uber Technologies, Inc. The covered-auto description is the same accepted-trip use. Comprehensive deductible $2,500. Collision deductible $2,500.

The certificate does not list a PIP limit, a medical-payments limit, or an airport limit. It does not split the post-acceptance period into a lower en-route limit and a higher passenger-trip limit. The $1 million combined single limit on this certificate covers both the drive to the pickup and the trip to the destination. That is a company choice above § 10-405. It is not a statutory acceptance tier.

Uber’s general insurance page, which is a different document, says that while en route or on a trip Uber maintains insurance of “at least” $1 million, and that repair coverage while en route or on a trip is contingent on the driver maintaining comprehensive and collision, with a $2,500 deductible. Uber’s driver insurance overview. The Maryland-listed certificate states the $1 million combined single limit and the $2,500 deductibles. It does not state that repair-coverage contingency. Those sentences should not be merged into one description of the Maryland policy. The same general page says uninsured and underinsured limits vary by state where the law requires the coverage. The Maryland-listed amount is 30/60/15, not the liability limit.

The forms say they confer no rights on the certificate holder and do not amend, extend, or alter the coverage. Deductibles, who is an insured, and other-insurance wording can live in forms this certificate does not attach.

Lyft prints three unlabeled policies. The help page, not the form, places $125,000 on the drive to pickup.

Lyft’s current Maryland certificate is dated October 1, 2026. Each form says coverage expires October 1, 2027. Insurer A is State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, NAIC 25143. The insured is Lyft, Inc. The description of operations on each form says “Evidence of Insurance Only” and “For the State of MD.” The certificate-number field is blank. The certificate holder on this year’s forms is Lyft, Inc., not the Maryland Insurance Administration. Lyft Maryland certificate of liability insurance.

The file prints three automobile policies. None of them uses the words period one, period two, or period three:

• Policy 0000010-D01-20, October 1, 2026 through October 1, 2027, non-owned autos only. Bodily injury $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident. Property damage $25,000 per accident. The combined-single-limit cell is blank. Remarks: no-fault coverage included as further described in the policy, subject to a policy limit selected of $2,500, and uninsured/underinsured bodily injury and property damage included at a selected $30,000 / $60,000 / $15,000. This form does not list comprehensive or collision.
• Policy 0000011-D01-20, same dates, non-owned autos only. $125,000 combined single limit per accident. The split-limit cells are blank. Remarks repeat the $2,500 no-fault selection and the 30/60/15 uninsured selection, and add comprehensive and collision deductibles of $2,500, with physical damage at actual cash value or the cost to repair, whichever is less, less that deductible.
• Policy 0000012-D01-20, same dates, non-owned autos only. $1,000,000 combined single limit per accident. The type-of-insurance column also prints “UBI-$30k/$60k, UPD-$15K.” Remarks repeat the $2,500 no-fault selection, the $2,500 comprehensive and collision deductibles, the actual-cash-value or repair wording, and the 30/60/15 uninsured selection.

Lyft’s driver insurance page is what ties a Maryland dollar figure to a slice of the trip. After a general statement about most markets, the page states a Maryland exception: third-party auto liability for covered accidents in Maryland is $125,000 combined single limits for bodily injury and property damage while the driver is en route to pick up a rider. Lyft’s insurance-coverage help page. The $125,000 figure on policy 0000011-D01-20 is the only limit on the certificate that matches that sentence. The page also describes waiting-period liability, before that exception, as at least 50/100/25 if personal insurance does not apply.

Do not read Lyft’s phrase “consistent with state requirements” as a legal conclusion. Section 10-405 is a 50/100/25 split limit, in addition to interest and costs, not a $125,000 combined single limit. A single $125,000 limit can pay one person more than $50,000, and it can be exhausted by a combination of injury and property damage in a way the split limits would not. Whether a $125,000 combined single limit satisfies § 10-405 is not settled. The help page is not the ACORD form, and the ACORD form does not name the periods. The certificate does not label policies 0000010, 0000011, and 0000012 as period one, period two, and period three.

The $125,000 limit is not new as of October 1, 2026. A prior State Farm certificate for October 1, 2025 through October 1, 2026 already printed $125,000 on policy 0000011-D01-20 and $1 million on policy 0000012-D01-20. The certificate holder on that prior form was the Maryland Insurance Administration. Lyft Maryland certificate for the prior policy year. When any higher en-route limit was last on a Lyft Maryland certificate was not established.

No medical-payments figure and no airport limit appear on the current Lyft certificate. Lyft’s Maryland driver disclosure tells the driver to read the certificates, to tell the personal insurer, and that a lienholder contract might be violated. It does not state dollar limits. Lyft state and local disclosures. As with Uber, the ACORD forms say they are evidence of insurance only. They do not attach the policy.

Lyft’s help page also describes contingent comprehensive and collision if the driver carries those coverages personally. The Maryland certificate states the $2,500 deductibles on policies 0000011-D01-20 and 0000012-D01-20. It does not state that contingency. Those two documents should not be merged.

The liability limit and the uninsured limit are not the same number

Liability coverage responds to the rideshare driver’s legal responsibility. Uninsured-motorist coverage responds when the at-fault vehicle’s liability insurance is missing or too thin under Maryland’s definition. A passenger hurt by an uninsured driver is looking at the uninsured selection on the certificate, not at the liability limit printed above it.

Maryland uses one uninsured-motorist section for the coverage § 10-405 incorporates. The text that matters for an accident now is the version of Insurance § 19-509 marked “IN EFFECT.” The same code page prints a second text marked effective June 30, 2029. That future text is not the rule for an accident today.

An “uninsured motor vehicle,” for bodily injury or death, is one for which the sum of the limits of liability under all valid and collectible liability policies, bonds, and securities is less than the amount of coverage provided under § 19-509, or has been reduced by payment to other persons from the same occurrence to an amount less than that coverage. § 19-509(a). That is a comparison of liability limits to the uninsured limit, plus a reduction when payments to others exhaust those limits. A vehicle with no applicable liability insurance has a sum of limits of zero, so it fits the “less than” clause. It is not a test that asks whether the liability limits are merely less than the person’s damages.

The coverage includes damages the insured is entitled to recover because of bodily injury, because of property damage including loss of use of the insured vehicle, and, for a surviving relative described in Courts Article § 3-904, because the insured died. § 19-509(c). Property damage is part of this statute. Both companies’ certificates state a $15,000 property-damage figure inside the uninsured line. They say “uninsured/underinsured” bodily injury and property damage, or “U Coverage,” at 30/60/15. They do not attach the form that would show a deductible or a narrower property-damage definition.

On a motor vehicle liability policy, the uninsured limit must at least equal the amounts required by Title 17 of the Transportation Article, and the coverage provided to a qualified person under Insurance Title 20, Subtitle 6, and it may not exceed the liability coverage on the policy. § 19-509(e)(1). Title 17’s amounts are $30,000 / $60,000 / $15,000. Transportation § 17-103(b).

Unless waived under § 19-510, uninsured coverage on a private passenger motor vehicle liability policy shall equal the liability coverage on that policy. The waiver must be an affirmative written waiver, on the Commissioner’s form, after written notice, and it lasts until withdrawn in writing. Section 19-510 applies only when liability exceeds the § 17-103 amount and the first named insured has § 19-509 coverage and has not obtained enhanced underinsured-motorist coverage under § 19-509.1.

That equal-to-liability default is written for a private-passenger policy. Section 10-405 requires “uninsured motorist insurance coverage required under § 19-509.” It does not say the transportation-network policy is a private-passenger policy, and it does not say uninsured coverage must equal the transportation-network liability limit. The floor that applies to a motor vehicle liability policy generally is the Title 17 amount. Both current certificates state a selected uninsured limit of 30/60/15 on the $1 million policies as well as on the lower policies. That is what the certificates say was selected. It is not a finding that the statute requires $1 million of uninsured coverage, and it is not a finding that the 30/60/15 selection violates § 19-509. Whether a court would treat these company policies as private passenger, and what a § 19-510 waiver would then mean, is not decided by the certificates.

Section 19-509(g) states the limit of liability for an insurer providing this coverage: the amount of that coverage less the amount paid to the insured that exhausts any applicable liability policies, bonds, and securities, on behalf of any person that may be held liable for the bodily injuries or death of the insured. That is a statutory reduction tied to liability payments. The policies can still have other-insurance language the certificates do not attach.

Uninsured coverage required by § 19-509 is primary to any right to recover from the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund under Title 20, Subtitle 6. § 19-509(h)(2). A policy may not require uninsured disputes to go to binding arbitration. § 19-509(j). Section 19-509.1 is an elective enhanced underinsured-motorist coverage for a private-passenger policy. If the first named insured has it, § 19-509 does not apply to that policy. The transportation-network certificates do not say enhanced coverage under § 19-509.1 was selected. The 30/60/15 selection on these forms is not that enhanced coverage.

PIP is named in the rideshare statute. It does not replace the liability claim.

Maryland requires a first-party personal-injury-protection benefit on a motor vehicle liability policy unless it is waived or, in a narrow case, rejected. That is not a no-fault tort system. Section 19-505 does not say a person must reach a medical-expense threshold before suing for pain and suffering. Fault still matters. Contributory negligence, discussed below, is what can bar the liability claim.

Unless waived under § 19-506 or rejected under § 19-506.1, the minimum benefits include up to $2,500 for:

• reasonable and necessary expenses arising from a motor vehicle accident and incurred within three years for necessary prosthetic devices and ambulance, dental, funeral, hospital, medical, professional nursing, surgical, and X-ray services;
• 85 percent of income lost within three years after, and resulting from, the accident, by an injured individual who was earning or producing income when the accident occurred; and
• reimbursement of reasonable and necessary expenses incurred within three years for essential services ordinarily performed for the family or household by an injured individual who was not earning or producing income when the accident occurred.

Insurance § 19-505(b). An insurer may require reasonable medical proof as a condition of the income benefit. The people the section lists, subject to its exclusions, include the first named insured and resident family members, a permissive user, a guest or passenger occupying the insured vehicle, and a person injured as a pedestrian, or while in, on, or alighting from an animal-drawn or muscular-power vehicle, in an accident that involves the insured vehicle. A passenger or a pedestrian is not automatically a personal-injury-protection insured of whichever policy someone hopes applies. The person has to qualify under the policy that is actually in force, and a waiver can bind more people than the person who signed it.

A waiver under § 19-506 is an affirmative written waiver by the first named insured, on the Commissioner’s form, after notice of the nature, extent, and cost. It is a waiver of all § 19-505 benefits, whether provided under that policy, any other motor vehicle liability policy issued in the State, or other authorized security. It binds each named insured, each listed driver, and each resident family member of the first named insured who is at least 16, with a narrow exception if that driver or family member is the first named insured on another policy that has no waiver. A continuous waiver lasts until withdrawn in writing.

Section 19-506.1 is not a general opt-out. It allows a rejection only for a policy whose liability coverage does not exceed the § 17-103 minimum, and only in specified Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund or prior-cancellation situations. A transportation-network policy written at 50/100/25, at a $125,000 combined single limit, or at $1 million exceeds the § 17-103 minimum, so this rejection section does not apply to it.

Because § 19-505 itself yields to a § 19-506 waiver, “required under § 19-505” is not a sentence that every transportation-network policy must carry $2,500 if a valid waiver exists. Lyft’s current certificate states, on all three Maryland automobile policies, that no-fault coverage is included, “as further described in the policy,” at a selected limit of $2,500. That is a company-document fact, and it is the statutory minimum benefit amount, not a richer schedule. Who is an insured, and whether wage-loss and essential-services benefits are included or only the medical slice, is in the policy the certificate does not attach.

Uber’s Maryland certificate does not list PIP, no-fault, or medical payments, and it does not state a $2,500 personal-injury-protection benefit. Medical payments are not a required Maryland auto coverage in § 19-505 or § 10-405. The coverage appears in § 19-517 only as one of the coverages a personal policy may exclude during transportation network services. Neither current certificate lists a medical-payments limit.

When PIP exists, it can matter to a driver, a passenger, or another person who qualifies under the policy that applies. It is not a substitute for liability coverage against the at-fault driver, and it is not uninsured-motorist coverage. The $2,500 ceiling is easy to exhaust. It does not raise the liability limit.

The personal policy may drop out. That does not make the company policy primary in every case.

An authorized insurer that writes motor vehicle liability insurance in Maryland, and the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund, may exclude any and all coverage and the duty to defend under an owner’s or operator’s personal motor vehicle policy for any loss or injury that occurs while the operator is providing transportation network services. The right applies to liability, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, medical payments, personal injury protection, comprehensive, and collision. Insurance § 19-517(c).

The exclusion is permitted. It is not mandatory. Nothing in § 19-517 or § 10-405 requires a personal policy to provide primary or excess coverage, or implies that a personal policy covers transportation network services. An insurer may choose to cover that use by contract or endorsement. The policy controls.

If the insurer excludes the use, it must give the named insured written notice stating that the policy excludes coverage for providing transportation network services: at issuance, for a policy initially purchased on or after January 1, 2016, and at the first renewal after January 1, 2016, for a policy then in force. An older “for a charge or available for hire” exclusion, including one in a policy in use or approved for use before July 1, 2015, is not invalidated by § 19-517 or § 10-405.

If an insurer that writes motor vehicle liability insurance in the State defends or indemnifies a claim against a driver for which coverage is excluded under its policy, that insurer has a right of contribution against other insurers that provide insurance to the same driver in satisfaction of § 10-405 at the time of the loss. § 19-517(c)(2).

Priority, when a company policy and a qualifying operator policy both exist, is the operator’s insurance. § 10-405(b). The company’s duty to provide the required coverage from the first dollar, and to defend, is stated for the case in which the operator’s coverage has been canceled, has lapsed, or is otherwise not in force. § 10-405(c). COMAR 20.95.01.20B(5) says that if the primary insurance required by § 10-405 is maintained by the operator and lapses or fails to provide the amount of coverage required, the company’s insurance provides that coverage from the first dollar and defends. Separately, § 19-517(d)(2) forbids making the company policy depend on a personal insurer’s denial.

Read together, those sentences reject a pure “we pay only after the personal insurer sends a denial letter” condition. They do not say the company policy is primary in every case where the driver also bought a rideshare endorsement that satisfies § 10-405. The statutory words for the company’s first-dollar duty are canceled, lapsed, or otherwise not in force. The regulation adds a failure to provide the amount required. Whether a personal-policy exclusion is the same event is not settled. The certificates do not state the other-insurance clause. Lyft’s help-page sentence that waiting-period liability applies “if your personal insurance does not apply” has to be read against those statutes. It is not a substitute for them.

Logged-off personal use is outside § 10-101(n). The § 19-517 exclusion is for a loss or injury that occurs while the operator is providing transportation network services. Maryland does not have a sentence that expressly forbids denying a purely personal claim solely because the car was sometimes used for that work. The policy’s own terms still control a personal-use claim.

The Maryland Insurance Administration’s ridesharing page tells drivers that most automobile policies do not provide coverage when a driver accepts payment to drive others, and it tells the driver to ask the insurer, to check the loan or lease, and to read the company agreement for whether coverage differs by trip stage, including the deductible and the maximum. Maryland Insurance Administration, ridesharing. That page is consumer guidance. It does not set limits. It is consistent with § 19-517 only at the level of “ask, because the personal policy may not cover this.”

Contributory negligence still bars a negligent plaintiff

Maryland has not replaced contributory negligence with comparative fault. In Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia, No. 9, September Term 2012 (Md. July 9, 2013), the Court of Appeals declined to abrogate “Maryland’s long-established common law principle of contributory negligence.” The jury had found the defendant negligent and had found that the plaintiff’s negligence contributed to his injuries. Judgment for the defendant was affirmed. The opinion, by Eldridge, J., follows Harrison v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 295 Md. 442, 456 A.2d 894 (1983).

The dissent in Coleman, quoting Harrison, states the operating rule the majority left in place: a plaintiff who fails to exercise ordinary care for his or her own safety and thus contributes proximately to the injury “is barred from all recovery, regardless of the quantum of a defendant’s primary negligence.” Maryland is not a pure comparative-fault state, and it is not a 50 percent or 51 percent modified state.

The same Coleman opinion notes the last-clear-chance doctrine and the rule that contributory negligence is not applied to a plaintiff under five. Those are exceptions. They are not a percentage system, and they are not comparative fault.

On a rideshare claim, that rule sits next to the insurance table rather than inside it. If a passenger’s or another driver’s own negligence proximately contributed to the injury, the liability claim can fail entirely. The coverage question then turns on the uninsured selection, which these certificates state at 30/60/15, not on the $1 million liability limit printed above it.

The noneconomic cap follows the injury date

Courts Article § 11-108 limits noneconomic damages in a personal-injury or wrongful-death action. For a cause of action arising on or after October 1, 1994, the cap started at $500,000 and increases by $15,000 on October 1 of each year beginning October 1, 1995. The increased amount applies to causes of action arising between October 1 of that year and September 30 of the next year. In a personal-injury action the limit applies to each direct victim and all persons who claim through that victim. In a wrongful-death action with two or more claimants or beneficiaries, the award may not exceed 150 percent of the limit. The jury is not told the number.

The section does not apply to a verdict under Title 3, Subtitle 2A, for a cause of action arising on or after January 1, 2005. That exclusion is the health-care malpractice track. It does not turn the cap into an insurance limit, and it does not apply the cap to those excluded verdicts.

Counted from the statute, 32 increases have occurred as of October 1, 2026, from October 1, 1995 through October 1, 2026. $500,000 plus 32 times $15,000 is $980,000 for a cause of action arising on or after October 1, 2026, and before October 1, 2027. The 150 percent wrongful-death figure for that year is $1,470,000. A cause of action arising on or after October 1, 2025, and before October 1, 2026, used 31 increases: $965,000, and $1,447,500 if the 150 percent provision applies. The cap follows the injury date, not the filing date. It does not change the 50/100/25 floor or any higher limit a company bought.

The usual civil limitations period is three years from accrual unless another provision sets a different period. Courts Article § 5-101. Other statutes can differ, including claims by or against a local government. The limitations period is not a coverage trigger.