At The Arndt Law Firm, we know how confusing and overwhelming it can be after a rideshare accident in Georgetown, South Carolina. Our team has helped rideshare passengers and drivers sort out the maze of insurance policies and company procedures, and we understand the unique challenges these cases bring.
When you reach out to us, you’re not just getting a lawyer; you’re getting a dedicated team committed to protecting your rights every step of the way.
We work together to dig into the details that matter most, from figuring out exactly what phase the rideshare app was in at the time of the crash to preserving crucial evidence before it disappears.
Our team approach means you have knowledgeable support on your side, whether you’re a resident or just visiting the Grand Strand. We handle the legal burdens so you can focus on recovery, and we make sure you’re informed throughout the process.
If you or a loved one has been injured in a rideshare accident, don’t wait. Contact our team at The Arndt Law Firm today for a free consultation. Let us help you secure the answers and support you deserve.
Which policy pays after an Uber or Lyft crash in South Carolina depends on what the driver's app was doing at the moment of impact, and the gap between the answers is nine hundred fifty thousand dollars. A passenger sitting in the back has no way of knowing which phase applied. The Arndt Law Firm establishes app status first in Georgetown County rideshare claims.
South Carolina regulates Uber and Lyft under the Transportation Network Company Act, at Section 58-23-1610 and following. The Act sets a graduated insurance scheme keyed to the driver's activity, and the phases are statutory minimums rather than company policy choices.
Phase one is the app being off. The driver is an ordinary motorist on a personal auto policy, and no company coverage attaches. The available limits may be nothing more than the state minimum of $25,000 per person.
Phase two is the app on with no ride accepted. Under Section 58-23-1630(B), the required coverage is primary liability of at least $50,000 for death and bodily injury per person, at least $100,000 per incident, and at least $50,000 for property damage, together with uninsured motorist coverage.
Those limits may be satisfied by the driver's insurance, the company's insurance, or both. The company's coverage cannot be held back until the driver's personal insurer denies the claim. If the driver's own coverage has lapsed, the company's insurer pays from the first dollar (Section 58-23-1630(D)-(E)).
Phase three runs from the moment a ride request is accepted until the last passenger leaves the vehicle. That entire window, including the drive to the pickup point, is a prearranged ride under Section 58-23-1610(9), and it carries at least $1 million in primary liability coverage under Section 58-23-1630(C).
One caution about published summaries. Several state $25,000 for property damage in phase two. The statute says fifty thousand. Where a secondary source and the code disagree, the code governs.
How much insurance covers an Uber accident in South Carolina?
It depends on the app. With the app off, only the driver's personal policy applies. With the app on and no ride accepted, at least $50,000 per person and $100,000 per incident. From acceptance of a ride until the last passenger exits, at least $1 million in primary liability coverage.
The rideshare traffic in this county has a shape that affects the phase question directly.
Trips to and from the airport at Myrtle Beach cross county lines and take substantial time, most of it in phase three once a ride has been accepted. Resort and rental transfers, restaurant runs at Murrells Inlet, and trips between Pawleys Island and Litchfield produce shorter journeys with more time spent positioning between fares, which is phase two.
The pickup leg matters more here than in a dense city. Where a driver accepts a fare at a rental property several miles away, the drive to that pickup is part of the prearranged ride. It carries the full million-dollar coverage, even though no passenger is aboard. A driver who tells an insurer they were "on the way to get someone" has described phase three, whether or not they realize it.
Where a driver was between fares in a spread-out coastal market, phase two applies, and a timestamp decides the difference between fifty thousand and a million on a company server.
Section 58-23-1625 expressly allows a personal auto insurer to exclude coverage while the driver is logged on or on a ride, although some drivers buy an endorsement that restores it.
The phase is a fact proved from records the companies hold rather than from anyone's memory.
A trip record shows when the driver logged on, when a request was accepted, the route driven, and when the ride ended. South Carolina law requires rideshare companies to keep trip records, including login and service start times, for three years (Section 58-23-1670).
In a coverage investigation, the company and insurers must share the driver's login and logoff times for the 12 hours before and after a crash (Section 58-23-1625(D)). The driver must also disclose on request whether the app was on (Section 58-23-1630(H)). These statutes do not cover telematics and third-party video, so we request them in writing early.
The request goes out in writing, early, identifying the driver, the vehicle, the date and time, and the trip, which a passenger can supply it. A passenger has an advantage worth using immediately: the trip exists in their own account history with a receipt, a route map, a timestamp, and the driver's identity. Screenshots of that cost nothing and cannot be edited afterward by anyone else.
Where a passenger was a visitor who has since gone home, that account record may be the only piece of evidence they still control, and it is worth capturing before anything else.
How do I prove whether the app was on?
Through the company's trip and telematics records rather than recollection. Screenshot your own trip history immediately, and send a written preservation request to the company early, since the difference between coverage phases can be nine hundred fifty thousand dollars.
The obvious defendant is whichever driver caused the collision, and frequently that is not the rideshare driver at all. A passenger injured when another vehicle crosses or turns onto the highway has a claim against that driver, with the rideshare policies sitting behind it as uninsured or underinsured coverage where the at fault limits fall short.
That matters here, because the county's recurring fatal geometry is exactly that movement. A rideshare vehicle traveling the corridor and struck by a car pulling out of a driveway produces a passenger claim against the turning driver, with the rideshare coverage available above it.
A claim against the company itself is a separate question from a claim against the driver, and it turns on the relationship between them, which is contested territory rather than a settled point. What the Act plainly does is require that coverage exists at each phase.
Other defendants appear depending on the facts. A vehicle owner who lent the car to an unfit driver or who is legally responsible for the driver, a maintenance provider, a road contractor, or a property owner responsible for an obstructed entrance can each be a proper defendant.
For crashes after January 1, 2026, a defendant may place a nonparty on the verdict form and shift a share of the fault onto them, which is a reason to identify everyone early. A nonparty cannot be put on the form if it is immune from suit, acted willfully or recklessly, or is the party whose fault the defendant is already responsible for.
A rideshare passenger often has no vehicle damage claim, no policy of their own on the vehicle they were in, and no obvious insurer to look to. That leads many to assume their own coverage is irrelevant, and the assumption is worth testing rather than accepting.
South Carolina requires uninsured motorist coverage and makes underinsured coverage optional (Section 38-77-160), but it has to be offered on a form. A signed form is conclusive proof of what was chosen. If a new policyholder never returned the form within 30 days, the insurer must add uninsured and underinsured coverage at the same limits as the liability coverage (Section 38-77-350(E)).
Whether a particular policy responds to a person injured as an occupant of someone else's vehicle depends on that policy's language, which is read rather than assumed. For a visitor injured here, the policy in question may have been written in another state to different terms.
Trip records are subject to statutory retention and disclosure duties, but those statutes do not address telematics and third-party video and may require additional written requests.
| Driver status at impact | Primary coverage | Practical note |
|---|---|---|
| App off | Driver's personal policy only | Personal limits may be the 25/50 state minimum |
| App on, no ride accepted | At least $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident, $50,000 property damage | May be satisfied by driver, company, or both |
| Ride accepted through last passenger exit | At least $1,000,000 primary liability | Includes the drive to the pickup point |
In 2025, South Carolina recorded 136,044 collisions, 946 fatalities, and 48,685 injuries. The South Carolina Highway Patrol is the dominant investigating agency for serious crashes in this region.
The Georgetown County Sheriff's Office responds within the county, and the Georgetown County Coroner's Office maintains a separate file for a fatality.
A trip crossing into Horry County, which happens on airport runs and on trips north from Murrells Inlet, can put the report with a different agency entirely, and the Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach police departments each cover their own city. Establishing the collision location precisely rather than approximately is the first practical step.
Under Section 56-5-1290, the reports drivers and owners must file are not admissible at trial as evidence of negligence or due care, and officers may refer to them only to refresh recollection, a principle running through every Georgetown crash claim.
Punitive damages require clear and convincing proof of willful, wanton, or reckless conduct (Section 15-32-520). They are usually capped at the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000, adjusted yearly for inflation. That rises to four times or $2 million in some cases, and the cap is removed entirely for intent to harm, a felony conviction arising from the crash, or substantially impaired driving (Section 15-32-530).
A second defendant may exist where a driver was served at a licensed establishment. For crashes after January 1, 2026, a licensee found liable alongside a charged driver is jointly and severally liable for fifty percent of the plaintiff's actual damages, and licensees must carry liquor liability coverage with an annual aggregate beginning at $1 million, reducible to $300,000 through mitigation credits.
For crashes after January 1, 2026, Section 61-6-2220 prohibits a liquor licensee from knowingly selling to a person who is intoxicated, and the claim has to prove that. The drunk driving analysis sets out how those claims interact and how the service records are obtained.
A claim requires proof that the driver owed a duty of care, breached it, and caused the injury. Violating a traffic statute can itself establish negligence (negligence per se).
South Carolina lets an injured person recover as long as their share of the fault is not greater than the defendant's, under Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 173, 399 S.E.2d 783 (1991), and S.C. Code Ann. § 15-38-15(A), with recovery reduced by that percentage and ending at 51 percent. A passenger is rarely assigned fault, which makes a rideshare passenger claim unusually clean on liability and unusually contested on coverage.
For crashes after January 1, 2026, a defendant may ask that a party who was never sued be placed on the verdict form and assigned a share, provided that party is disclosed within one hundred eighty days of the start of the action. A nonparty cannot be put on the form if it is immune from suit, acted willfully or recklessly, or is the party whose fault the defendant is already responsible for. The defendant carries the burden of proving that the added party's breach was a proximate cause unless the plaintiff amends to add them.
In a case with two vehicles, two carriers, and a company policy, that mechanism has obvious appeal to a defendant. The date of the crash decides whether it applies at all.
The categories are the same as any injury claim. Medical treatment, follow-up care, therapy, prescriptions, and any future care a physician says is likely, from the economic side, along with lost income and lost earning capacity.
South Carolina places no general statutory cap on non-economic damages in an ordinary injury case. Pain, disfigurement, and the loss of activities a person used to enjoy are not limited by statute.
A passenger frequently has no vehicle damage claim at all, which removes the anchor an adjuster normally uses to frame an injury as minor. It also removes the early property settlement that usually establishes the file exists.
Treatment adds a further consideration here. Published collisions show patients taken to Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital, to Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital in Murrells Inlet (Adult Level IV trauma), and, for the most serious injuries, Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, a Level I trauma center. A single collision can produce records at more than one facility in more than one county. For a passenger who then travels home, the record splits again.
Do I have a claim if the rideshare vehicle was not at fault?
Yes. Your claim runs against whichever driver caused the collision. The Transportation Network Company Act requires rideshare policies to provide at least the state minimum uninsured motorist coverage, but does not require underinsured coverage. Whether the company's policy pays above the at-fault driver's limits depends on the policy terms, which are obtained in the claim process.
The steps that protect a rideshare claim close faster than in an ordinary crash, because the most important evidence sits on a company server rather than at the scene.
Screenshot the trip in your own account history immediately. The receipt, the route map, the timestamps, and the driver's identity are all there, and that record cannot be edited by anyone else once captured.
Photograph the vehicle, including any company decal or placard displayed, and note whether the driver's phone showed an active trip. Get the driver's name and insurance information as you would in any collision, and get the other driver's as well.
Fix the location precisely, since a trip crossing into Horry County puts the report with a different agency.
Report the crash to your own insurer even though you were a passenger, since most policies require notice regardless of fault, and get evaluated before you travel home. A passenger with no vehicle damage claim has nothing anchoring the file except the medical record.
Filing a wrongful death claim is time-sensitive. You generally have three years from the date of death to submit your claim (according to Section 15-3-530(6)). In the case of injuries, if they weren't obvious at the time, the three-year period begins when the injured person knew or reasonably should have known that a claim could be made (Section 15-3-530(5)).
For claims against government drivers or agencies, the timeline is a bit shorter. Under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, you must file your suit within two years (Section 15-78-110). However, if you file a verified claim with the agency within one year of the incident, this period can extend to three years (Section 15-78-80(d)). After filing, you’ll need to wait 180 days before launching a lawsuit, unless the claim is denied sooner (Section 15-78-90(b)).
Keep in mind that there are caps on recovery: you can receive a maximum of $300,000 per person and $600,000 per incident (Section 15-78-120), and punitive damages aren't permitted. If you were injured while working, your employer cannot be sued (Section 42-1-540), but you can still pursue the driver at fault. If you don’t initiate a suit against that driver within one year after your workers' compensation carrier has accepted your claim or paid benefits, the carrier can take over the right to sue, provided they give you written notice. Plus, they will have a lien on any recovery you might receive (Section 42-1-560).
When it comes to minors, the timeframe for filing a claim may be extended. Section 15-3-40 allows the deadline to be paused during a child’s minority, but there are limits to how long it can be extended past their 18th birthday. Each case is unique, so it’s important to verify the specifics with legal counsel instead of making assumptions.
Finally, remember that key evidence like trip records, telematics, and third-party footage is typically kept by other parties only for a limited time. Once their retention period ends, they have no obligation to preserve it, so acting quickly is crucial.
A crash in Georgetown County is filed at the Georgetown County Court of Common Pleas, 401 Cleland St., 1st Floor, Room 115, Georgetown, SC 29440. A crash across the line in Horry County may belong in Horry County instead, depending on where the defendant lives or does business.
A suit is brought in the Court of Common Pleas, which sits in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, the same circuit serving Horry County. The Clerk of Court handles the filing of new civil cases, judgments, lis pendens, arbitration actions, and attachments.
Rideshare claims involve corporate carriers rather than a local adjuster and are frequently resolved without suit. Filing still changes the posture, because it converts a coverage argument between insurers into a case with discovery obligations attached, and discovery is what produces the trip and telematics records a company has not volunteered.
Residency is not required. A visiting passenger files here in the same way a resident does.
A rideshare driver injured in a collision occupies a different position from a passenger, and it is frequently a worse one.
Section 58-23-1625 expressly allows a personal auto insurer to exclude coverage while a driver is logged on or providing a prearranged ride. A driver relying on a personal policy while working may find it does not respond at all, which is precisely why the statutory phases exist.
The company coverage in phases two and three is liability coverage, which pays people the driver injures rather than the driver themselves. What responds to the driver's own injuries is the at-fault party's liability policy, any uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage that applies during the phase, and whatever medical payments coverage exists.
Where another motorist struck the driver, the analysis is the same as any other injured driver's, with the added question of which policy applies given the app status at impact.
A driver hurt while working also faces a question about whether workers' compensation applies, which turns on the employment relationship and is contested territory rather than settled.
Does the company's insurance cover the driver's own injuries?
The phase coverage is liability insurance, which pays people the driver injures. A driver's own injuries are met by the at-fault party's policy and by any uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage that applies.
It depends on the driver's app status at impact. Personal insurance applies with the app off. While the driver is waiting for a ride request, at least $50,000 per person and $100,000 per incident in primary liability coverage applies. Once a ride is accepted, $1 million in primary coverage applies.
That situation falls under a prearranged ride, according to Section 58-23-1610(9). This phase starts when the driver accepts the ride and continues until the last passenger leaves the vehicle, and it offers at least $1 million in primary liability coverage.
Usually, claims are directed towards the drivers and their insurance policies. Whether you can hold Uber or Lyft liable depends on how they relate to the driver, and this can be a complex area to navigate.
You’ll need to file in South Carolina, where the accident took place, but don't worry, you don’t need to be a resident. Just make sure you pay attention to South Carolina’s deadlines for filing.
Nothing up front. Consultations are free, and the fee is contingent on recovery.
The Arndt Law Firm begins a rideshare claim by pinning down the app status, because a $50,000 phase and a $1 million phase look identical at the scene and differ entirely on paper. That means written preservation requests for trip and telematics records while they still exist, and it means telling a passenger to screenshot their own trip history before anything else.
Locating the medical record is the parallel task. It is more involved here than elsewhere, since three hospitals across two counties receive patients from this corridor and a visiting passenger's follow-up care happens somewhere else again.
Matters are filed in the Court of Common Pleas in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Attorney Jonathan S. Arndt has been licensed in South Carolina since 2018 and reviews the firm's rideshare matters.
Passengers pay nothing to have a claim assessed, and no fee follows unless it recovers. You can reach the firm through the contact page. While South Carolina requires rideshare companies to keep trip records for three years, telematics data and third-party video may have much shorter retention periods and are not specifically covered by those rules. Early written requests are critical for preserving this evidence.
Last reviewed: August 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
