An Uber or Lyft wreck in Raleigh is not decided only under the ordinary auto floors. North Carolina has a transportation-network statute that sets one primary liability figure while a driver is logged into the app and not yet providing a ride, and a much higher figure while that driver is actually performing TNC service. The gap between those two periods can be the gap between a twenty-five-thousand-dollar property limit and a one-million-dollar combined primary limit. G.S. 20-280.4 is the statute.
While a TNC driver is logged on to the company’s online-enabled application or platform but is not providing TNC service, the required primary automobile liability insurance is at least fifty thousand dollars for the death of, or bodily injury to, one person in a wreck, one hundred thousand dollars for the death of, or bodily harm to, two or more people in that wreck, and at least twenty-five thousand dollars for injury to, or destruction of, someone else’s property in that wreck. Combined uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that complies with G.S. 20-279.21(b)(3) and (b)(4) is required in that period as well.
While the driver is engaged in TNC service, the required primary automobile liability insurance is at least one million dollars for death, bodily injury, harm to someone else’s property, or any combination of those, in a single wreck, again plus combined uninsured and underinsured coverage that complies with the same uninsured and underinsured subsections. “Engaged in TNC service” is the period that includes the prearranged ride, not merely having the app open in a parking lot on Glenwood.
If the driver’s own policy does not respond
The coverage may be kept by the driver, by the company, or by a combination of the two. If insurance kept by the TNC driver has lapsed, or fails to furnish the required coverage, insurance kept by the company must furnish what the section requires, beginning at dollar one of a claim, and must defend. A company policy must not wait for a personal auto insurer to deny a claim first.
In a crash, the driver must, on request, give insurance-coverage information directly to the people involved, to automobile insurers, and to investigating police officers. The driver must also disclose, on that request, whether the driver was logged on or off of the company’s application or platform at the time of the accident. Ask for that disclosure at the scene if conditions allow, and again in writing later. The period decision, logged on but waiting versus actually engaged in TNC service, is the fact that chooses which floor applies.
That logged-on property figure, twenty-five thousand dollars, is not the same as the ordinary North Carolina auto property floor of fifty thousand dollars that has applied to new or renewed private policies since July 1, 2025. Do not read G.S. 20-279.21 onto a logged-on rideshare claim without also reading G.S. 20-280.4. The two statutes use different property numbers in that waiting period.
Fault, reports, and household coverage
Contributory negligence still applies. A rideshare passenger who was hurt on Fayetteville Street, or a person hit in a Five Points crosswalk by a driver on the way to a pickup, still faces the same fault defense that any other Raleigh injury claim faces. Higher TNC limits do not soften that rule. Household uninsured or underinsured coverage may still be part of the file, and after July 1, 2025, underinsured-motorist coverage is included on new or renewed ordinary auto policies. Read those declarations pages as well as the company’s coverage letters.
Get the Raleigh crash report early. It is free at 6716 Six Forks Road or through the Police portal for people who are allowed to receive it. The report will not always say whether the app was on. That is why the statutory disclosure duty matters. Keep the app receipts, the trip screenshot, and any message history that shows a pickup was underway. Those items help fix the period.
The lawsuit window is still three years for an ordinary injury claim under G.S. 1-52(16), and two years counted from death for a G.S. 28A-18-2 action. A civil case from Wake County is filed at 316 Fayetteville St. Mall. If a municipal or state vehicle is also part of the facts, there is an extra path in the city-and-state guide. A TNC claim does not pause those clocks.
Take the trip receipt, the crash report, the disclosure about whether the app was on, and the household declarations pages to the first serious conversation about the file. Ask which period of G.S. 20-280.4 the company is using, whether the company’s own policy is responding from the first dollar, and whether any household uninsured or underinsured coverage sits beside it. The period is the whole case on the coverage side. Get it in writing.
Raleigh has a lot of short rides between downtown, Glenwood South, Five Points, and the beltline hotels. A two-minute trip can still be a prearranged ride under the statute if the passenger had already been matched and the driver was on the way or had already made the pickup. A driver sitting at a coffee shop with the app on, waiting for a request, is in the other period. Do not let a claims letter collapse those two periods into one. Ask for the company’s timestamp log, and compare it with the crash report and with any receipt in the passenger’s phone.
If the injured person was the rider, keep the fare receipt and the route map. If the injured person was in another car, or on foot in a crosswalk, those same timestamps still decide which TNC floor applies. The company’s period decision should be in writing, with the statutory subsection next to it, before anyone treats the coverage as settled.