Bolt UK accident claims for drivers and passengers

Bolt's UK operating model: Estonian parent, UK subsidiary, multiple local licences

The Bolt group's ultimate parent is Bolt Technology OÜ, an Estonian private limited company registered at the Estonian Centre of Registers and Information Systems under company number 12417834. Bolt Technology OÜ is the legal owner of the Bolt trade name, the Bolt rider and Bolt Driver apps and the Bolt Food vertical. Day-to-day platform operations across the group sit in a sister Estonian entity, Bolt Operations OÜ (registry number 14532901). Both entities are domiciled in Tallinn and both feature on the Bolt Group privacy-controller list published on bolt.eu.

The UK-facing subsidiary that trades the platform in England, Scotland and Wales is Bolt Services UK Limited, registered at Companies House under company number 11063356. Bolt Services UK Limited was incorporated on 14 November 2017 with its registered office at Leather Market, Unit J, Taper Studios, 175 Long Lane, London SE1 4GT. This is the legal entity that holds Bolt's UK operator licences and that appears, in practice, as the contracting operator on a UK Bolt booking. Where a passenger pursues a contract-based claim under section 56 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (outside London) or under the equivalent deemed-contract case-law analysis under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 (inside London), Bolt Services UK Limited is the correctly named UK defendant.

Each city in which Bolt accepts bookings carries its own operator licence. Inside London the licensor is Transport for London under the PHV(L)A 1998 - the Bolt Services UK Limited London operator-licence record is on TfL's public licensee register. Outside London the licensors are the district councils acting under section 55 of LGMPA 1976. Bolt's published city list (bolt.eu/en-gb/cities) covers approximately twenty UK cities as at May 2026, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leicester, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Southampton and Wolverhampton. Each of those councils has its own vehicle-inspection regime, its own post-accident notification rule and its own appeal route. When a claim file opens we identify the issuing licensing authority on day one because the same Bolt driver in two different cities is working under two different rule books.

Bolt's UK insurance ecosystem: the Zego partnership and Markel-underwritten lines

Bolt does not itself underwrite the driver's vehicle in the United Kingdom. Every UK Bolt driver must carry their own hire-and-reward motor insurance certificate from a specialist private hire insurer, and Bolt's role sits on top of that certificate rather than inside it. The platform's most widely publicised UK insurtech partner is Zego. Zego (legal name Extracover Limited) markets itself as a UK insurtech partner of Uber, Bolt and FreeNow and operates a direct certificate-upload integration with the Bolt onboarding flow so that a new driver's policy uploads to Bolt automatically once it is active. Zego's flagship product is Zego Sense, a telematics-rated hire-and-reward policy that uses in-app driver-behaviour scoring (acceleration, braking, cornering and screen-use signals) to set the premium.

Underneath Zego's distribution, the underwriting carrier varies. On certain Zego-distributed lines Markel International (a Lloyd's of London specialty insurer) sits as the underlying underwriter. Other Zego products are underwritten by other carriers in their panel. A Bolt driver should read the policy schedule rather than rely on the brand on the app - the named underwriter on the certificate of motor insurance is the entity the third-party claim notifies. This is structurally different from Uber's UK arrangement, under which Aviva has long been the most prominent primary hire-and-reward underwriter on the Uber driver segment, with Allianz Partners providing the Partner Protection accident-and-sickness layer on top of the trip and the fifteen-minute post-trip window.

A practical consequence of the Zego partnership is the bundling option. Several Bolt-onboarding partner insurance packages - sold direct by Zego and by other carriers in the Zego panel - bundle the platform-state cover with the underlying hire-and-reward policy in a single product. The bundle removes the gap in the App On Waiting state that some older hire-and-reward policies left open. For an accident file the relevant fact is whether the certificate is a bundled product or a standard hire-and-reward policy with the app-on state handled by endorsement. The schedule will say. If the schedule is silent on the point, we treat the App On Waiting state as a coverage question to be answered before the third-party claim is opened, not after.

The three insurance states: App Off, App On Waiting and Trip Active

A working Bolt driver's vehicle is in one of three insurance states at any given moment. App Off is the simplest. The Bolt Driver app is closed, the driver is not available for jobs, and the vehicle is being used privately - school run, shopping, running errands, parked at home overnight. In App Off only the underlying hire-and-reward policy responds, and it does so under the social, domestic and pleasure use sections if those sections are endorsed on the schedule. There is no platform layer in this state because the driver is not on the platform.

App On Waiting is the state that historically created the insurance gap in the UK ride-hailing market. The Bolt Driver app is open, the driver is logged in, the device is showing the available-driver map and the driver is waiting for a booking to come through. There is no passenger and no accepted job, but the driver is plainly working. Older hire-and-reward policies sometimes left this state to be answered by an app-on endorsement that the driver had not in fact bought; specialist app-aware schemes (Zego Sense and similar) were designed to close that gap by treating App On Waiting as a covered use. The question for an accident file is therefore one of policy reading rather than guesswork - produce the schedule, locate the app-on language, and confirm in writing.

Trip Active begins the moment the driver accepts a Bolt booking inside the Driver app. The driver is en route to pick-up, has the passenger in the car, or is on the short post-drop window that the platform treats as continuing the trip for safety-toolkit purposes. In Trip Active the driver's own hire-and-reward policy responds at its broadest and Bolt's published top-up cover comes into play. What triggers Bolt's top-up is the trip acceptance event inside the Driver app - a fact captured automatically in the platform's audit log and verifiable on a subsequent SAR-disclosure or platform-data request. Our day-one intake records the state, the city, the trip ID and the time of trip acceptance, because the state controls which insurer notifies and which layer responds first.

The driver's hire-and-reward policy: Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 and bundling

UK motor insurance use classes are a long-standing market shorthand for what the policy permits. Class 1 permits commercial use by the named policyholder only - sufficient for an owner-driver Bolt driver who never lends the vehicle. Class 2 extends commercial use to a named additional driver - relevant where a family member shares the car for private use or where a partner-driver scheme is in place. Class 3 is broader still and is typically required for couriers and delivery riders rather than private hire drivers. For a Bolt private hire driver the standard arrangement is a Class 1 hire-and-reward policy in the driver's own name with any named-driver additions handled by endorsement.

The hire-and-reward requirement is statutory rather than contractual. Section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires every motor vehicle on a road to be insured against third-party risks for the use being made of it. A social, domestic and pleasure policy - the policy a private driver buys for a non-working car - does not satisfy s.143 when fare-paying passengers are in the vehicle. Driving a Bolt passenger on an SD&P certificate is uninsured driving for the purpose of s.143, a six-points or above offence, and a serious enough breach of the platform's terms to trigger a permanent Bolt account suspension.

Several Bolt-onboarding partner packages distributed through Zego and other carriers in the Zego panel bundle the platform-state cover (App On Waiting and Trip Active) directly into the hire-and-reward certificate, sold to the driver as a single product. The bundle removes the policy-reading exercise the driver would otherwise have to do on each accident; the schedule simply says the policy covers app-on, no-booking and trip-active periods. Other drivers buy their hire-and-reward policy from a non-Zego carrier and rely on an app-on endorsement bolted on at renewal. Both routes work in principle, but the bundled-product route reduces the risk of an inadvertent coverage gap in the App On Waiting state and is the simpler arrangement for a driver who does not want to track endorsement wording across renewals.

Bolt's commission and loss-of-earnings evidence: 10-20% and the weekly export

Bolt's published UK driver commission sits in a 10-20% band depending on city, driver tier and vehicle type. The published baseline at the lower end - 10% - applies to electric vehicle drivers across most UK cities, an explicit incentive to operate zero-tailpipe vehicles on the platform. The standard combustion-engine commission is typically 15-20% depending on the city and on whether the driver is on a city-specific bonus tier. The commission is deducted from the gross fare before payout to the driver and shows on every weekly statement that the Bolt Driver app earnings export produces. That weekly export is the spine of any loss-of-earnings claim for a self-employed Bolt driver because it is contemporaneous, platform-generated and therefore admissible without further proof of its provenance.

The recoverable head of loss for a self-employed driver is net loss of earnings, not gross fares. Build the evidence pack from the last six to eight weeks before the collision: the Bolt Driver app weekly exports, the bank credits that match them, fuel receipts, vehicle finance or rental statements, hire-and-reward insurance premium receipts, the latest HMRC SA302 tax calculation and a contemporaneous mileage log. From the gross fares deduct Bolt's commission at the rate shown on the schedule, fuel at actual receipts, an apportionment of fixed costs (rental, finance, insurance, MOT) over the hours actually worked, vehicle depreciation on a reasonable basis and Class 2 and Class 4 NICs. The resulting net hourly take is what the at-fault driver's insurer pays for, multiplied by the hours the driver would have worked in the off-road period.

In nine UK pilot cities (including Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle as at May 2026) Bolt is trialling a separate Bolt Flex earnings model with a flat commission and driver-set fares. Bolt Flex is not available in London. For a driver on Bolt Flex the commission figure on the export is the flat rate rather than the city-tiered rate, and a loss-of-earnings build for a Flex driver should record which scheme they were on for each week in the evidence period. Where a driver mixes schemes - Flex in one week, standard in another - the build is split by week to preserve the figures.

The Bolt in-app incident report flow: driver path and passenger path

The Bolt platform exposes two parallel in-app incident report flows. The driver path runs inside the Bolt Driver app. After a collision the driver opens the app, navigates to the trip on which the incident occurred (or to a recent trip if the incident was in App On Waiting between bookings), opens the safety or support flow and starts a new incident report. The driver attaches scene photographs, the dashcam clip, the other driver's section 170 RTA 1988 details, the police reference where police attended and a one-page factual narrative. Bolt's published help pages tell drivers to submit the report promptly. The industry norm and the wording of most platform onboarding terms is notification inside twenty-four hours. Once the report submits, the Driver app returns a reference number which we record on the claim file.

The passenger path runs inside the separate Bolt rider app. A passenger affected by an in-trip collision or injury taps the relevant trip in the rider app, opens the in-app help section and selects a report category - accident, injury, safety concern or lost item. The rider app collects the passenger's account of events, photographs of any visible injury, the trip GPS map (which the rider can download from the trip history) and screenshots of any in-app messages exchanged with the driver. The passenger's report goes to Bolt's safety team, which is a distinct desk from the driver-side support team - so the driver's report and the passenger's report sit in separate queues and are reconciled internally rather than at the front line.

Where the at-fault driver is a third party (not the Bolt driver), the passenger's primary claim is against the third party's insurer. Where the Bolt driver is at fault, the passenger's claim is against the Bolt driver's hire-and-reward insurer with a direct right of action under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Bolt's role in both scenarios is operational - preserving trip data, facilitating contact and confirming the booking - rather than indemnifying. We record the trip ID, the driver's hire-and-reward insurer, the third-party driver's insurer (where one is identified) and Bolt's in-app reference number so that the file can be reconstructed at any later point from a single index line.

The Bolt passenger claim: at-fault third party, at-fault Bolt driver and the OIC portal

A Bolt passenger injured in a UK collision has the same rights as any other road traffic victim, with platform-specific overlays that we walk through here. The first question is the same as for any passenger claim: who was at fault. Where the at-fault party is a third-party driver - the other car ran a red light, the lorry side-swiped the Bolt while changing lanes, the cyclist undertook unsafely and the Bolt driver had no avoidance - the passenger's claim is a normal third-party claim against the at-fault driver's motor insurer. The Bolt driver is a witness, not a defendant. The passenger should still report the incident through the Bolt rider app to preserve the trip data, but the substantive claim runs against the third-party insurer.

Where the at-fault party is the Bolt driver - the Bolt driver pulled out without looking, ran a red light, took a corner too fast or otherwise caused the collision - the passenger's claim is against the Bolt driver's own hire-and-reward policy first, with any Markel-underwritten Zego top-up arrangement responding above the underlying policy on the layers it covers. The passenger has a direct right of action against the insurer under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, so the claim does not have to wait for an admission from the Bolt driver before it can be notified. The schedule on the Bolt driver's certificate names the underwriter and the claims notification address.

For pain, suffering and loss of amenity valued at or under £5,000 (the Civil Liability Act 2018 small-claims-track limit for road traffic injury) the route is the Official Injury Claim portal. The duration-banded whiplash compensation tariff is fixed by regulation; the portal is designed to be used by the injured passenger directly. For higher-value injuries - PSLA above £5,000, or below £5,000 but with significant special damages - the route is a regulated solicitor under a no win, no fee conditional fee agreement. The wider quantum picture for any personal injury claim after a car accident is on the standalone hub, and the three-year limitation period runs from the date of the accident under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980. CityGrip's role is signposting and, where appropriate, referral to an SRA-regulated panel solicitor on disclosed referral terms.

Bolt Food and Bolt courier: a separate insurance vertical

Bolt Food is the food and grocery delivery brand of the Bolt group. It operates in a number of UK cities through its own courier-app interface and its own insurance regime. A moped, scooter or bicycle courier delivering for Bolt Food is not on the Bolt private hire vehicle hire-and-reward arrangement that this page otherwise addresses. The PHV cover responds to carriage of fare-paying passengers in a licensed minicab; it does not respond to carriage of goods on a delivery vehicle.

UK food and parcel couriers need their own delivery-rider insurance. The standard product is a Class 3 hire-and-reward delivery rider policy with cover for carriage of goods for hire and reward, and many couriers carry separate goods-in-transit cover and a personal-accident layer. Premiums on courier motorbike insurance are typically higher than on standard motorbike cover because of the higher mileage and higher claim severity per mile, and the market specialist underwriters include Lexham, ZEGO (separate from the private hire product), Principal and other delivery-segment carriers.

The practical consequence for an accident file is one of routing. If the rider was on a Bolt Food delivery at the moment of the collision, the claim path is the delivery-rider product, not the Bolt PHV product. The Bolt Food rider's report goes through the Bolt courier app rather than the Bolt Driver app; the hire-and-reward insurer to notify is the delivery-rider insurer, not the private-hire insurer; and the loss-of-earnings evidence is the courier earnings statement rather than the driver weekly export. The two verticals share a brand but they do not share a claim path.

Bolt's TfL London operator licence: current position and compliance history

Bolt's London position has been actively scrutinised by Transport for London over recent years and the page reader should not rely on a frozen statement of facts. As at the publication date of this page, Bolt Services UK Limited holds a London private hire vehicle operator's licence issued by TfL under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998. The licence is on TfL's public licensee register, which any reader can verify on the TfL licence checker. That said, the licence is subject to the standard TfL operator-licence conditions and to TfL's ongoing oversight. The TfL Bolt licence decision note 2024 records seven compliance inspections of Bolt's London operating centres between November 2021 and May 2024, including one variation inspection.

The wider regulatory history is that London ride-hailing licences in general have been in flux since the original 2017 TfL decision in relation to Uber, and the TfL operator-licence regime has tightened materially since then in response to safety, fitness and record-keeping concerns. A driver or passenger relying on the current status of Bolt's London licence - for example, on the issue of whether the operator was duly licensed on the date of the collision - should run the licence number through the TfL licence checker rather than rely on third-party reporting. We do that on intake for every London Bolt file we handle, because a licence point can be decisive in a deemed-contract analysis under section 56 LGMPA 1976 by analogy.

Outside London, Bolt's operator-licence position is set by each district council under section 55 LGMPA 1976. The position in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield, Newcastle and the other UK cities on Bolt's published list is fragmented by definition: each council issues its own licence on its own conditions. There is no single national status to report. For a non-London Bolt collision we identify the licensing authority on the vehicle plate, pull the council's current operator-licence conditions, and handle the notification duty inside the time window the licence specifies.

Continue across the UK minicab vertical

Bolt-driver and Bolt-passenger files frequently sit alongside files involving the same driver on a different platform or the same vehicle under a different council's licence. The pages below cover the rest of the vertical and the adjacent service topics.

• UK minicab accident claims hub
• Uber accident claims
• FreeNow accident claims
• Hire-and-reward insurance claims
• TfL private hire licence and accidents
• Private hire accident claims
• Credit hire
• Injury claim referral

Six-step post-accident notification flow for a UK Bolt driver

1. Step 1

   Make the scene safe and comply with section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988

   Stop, set hazards, check the passenger, and exchange names, addresses, vehicle registration and insurance details with every driver involved. If anyone is injured, an animal listed in s.170(8) is hurt, or details are not exchanged at the scene, you must report the collision to a police station or constable as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 24 hours. Note the dashcam timestamp and the GPS coordinates from your Bolt Driver app trip map.

2. Step 2

   Open the in-app safety toolkit in the Bolt Driver app and start the incident report

   Open the Bolt Driver app, find the trip on which the collision occurred (or the most recent trip if you were App On Waiting), tap the safety or support flow and begin a new incident report. Attach scene photographs, the dashcam clip, the other driver's section 170 details, the police incident reference where police attended and a one-page factual narrative. Save the in-app reference number Bolt returns once the report is submitted.

3. Step 3

   Notify the licensing authority within the time set by your licence conditions

   For a TfL-licensed PHV the published licensee responsibilities require notification of any collision that materially affects the safety, performance, appearance or comfort of the vehicle within 72 hours, under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998. Outside London, the licensing conditions of your issuing district council under Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 set the equivalent time limit - many councils mirror the 72-hour rule. The same notification triggers a re-inspection requirement before the vehicle can carry passengers again.

4. Step 4

   Notify your own hire-and-reward insurer (Zego or other specialist carrier)

   Your specialist hire-and-reward insurer - Zego, Inshur, Markel, Acorn, an Aviva-backed scheme or another - requires notification regardless of fault. Failure to notify within the policy's time limit can prejudice both the third-party claim and any first-party cover for your own vehicle. Send the same evidence pack you uploaded to the Bolt Driver app and quote your Bolt in-app reference number.

5. Step 5

   Open the third-party claim and arrange a like-for-like licensed PHV replacement

   Open the claim against the at-fault driver's insurer (their certificate of motor insurance lists the insurer's name). As a non-fault Bolt driver you are entitled, under Dimond v Lovell [2000] UKHL 27 and Lagden v O'Connor [2003] UKHL 64, to a like-for-like replacement vehicle. For a working Bolt driver the replacement must itself be licensed as a PHV in the same authority area, insured for hire-and-reward and of broadly equivalent class and capacity to the off-road car. A standard private courtesy car is not like-for-like.

6. Step 6

   Document loss of earnings from the Bolt Driver app weekly export

   Pull the weekly earnings statement from the Bolt Driver app for the last six to eight weeks before the collision. Cross-reference each week against bank statements, fuel and finance receipts, your latest HMRC SA302 tax calculation and a contemporaneous mileage log. From the gross fares deduct Bolt's commission (10-20% per the published rate card; 10% for EV drivers), fuel at actual receipts, an apportionment of fixed costs and Class 2 / Class 4 NICs. The resulting net hourly take, multiplied by the off-road hours, is the recoverable loss-of-earnings figure.