Ride-sharing insurance bill, background screening bill have different fates

While ride-sharing services Lyft and Uber have withdrawn their opposition to a newly introduced bill requiring large amounts of insurance on drivers without passengers, for a brief moment the two competitors put aside their differences and became allies against California’s proposed bill AB 2293. In its original form, AB 2293 — which was proposed by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla — would have required ride-sharing companies or drivers to maintain $750,000 in commercial insurance on each driver, sans passengers, at all times. When a driver picked up a passenger, the insurance would be required to jump to $1 million in coverage. While Uber and Lyft already require their drivers to maintain the $1 million insurance requirement when they have a passenger in the vehicle, they have not previously been required to maintain such a large amount of commercial insurance when there no passengers were present. However, Uber and Lyft were able to get on board with the new requirements when the bill was amended to state that the drivers must have $200,000 in excess liability coverage for times in which no passengers are in the vehicle, as well as $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident coverage for personal injury protection. They also must have $30,000 in property damage coverage. In this format, the bill headed to the state Senate at the end of August. A second bill that affects ride-sharing companies never made it out of the gate, however. California’s AB 612, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, did not make it past the Transportation Committee. This bill would have strengthened drug and alcohol testing and background checks for drivers by requiring companies to go through the Justice Department and Department of Motor Vehicles to conduct background checks and acquire driving records. In addition, that bill would have also prevented convicted felons from working as drivers within seven years of their convictions, which is already mandatory for taxi and limo drivers.]]>