Passenger claim against an at-fault minicab driver

Who you claim against: the driver’s hire-and-reward insurer

When the at-fault driver is the minicab driver carrying you, the primary defendant is that driver’s own hire-and-reward motor insurer. Every UK licensed private hire vehicle must carry hire-and-reward third-party cover under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, and that cover must extend to passengers carried for payment. The certificate of motor insurance is issued by a specialist insurer such as Zego (including the telematics-rated Zego Sense product), Inshur, Markel, Acorn Insurance, Patons or an Aviva-backed scheme. The certificate is what the operator (Uber, Bolt, Addison Lee, FreeNow, or the local minicab firm) is required to hold on file under its operator licence conditions.

The mechanism by which your claim against the driver translates into a payment from the insurer is section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Where a court enters judgment against an insured driver for third-party injury or property damage and the insurer was given prior written notice of the proceedings under section 152, the insurer must satisfy the judgment. The seven-day notice under s.152 is the procedural protection a passenger must give the insurer before issuing proceedings, and it is the reason the very first step on this page is to identify and notify the hire-and-reward insurer in writing as soon as the certificate can be obtained from the operator. For a passenger represented by a panel solicitor, the solicitor handles that notice; for a passenger using the Official Injury Claim portal directly, the portal itself manages the insurer dialogue inside its workflow.

Two practical wrinkles: first, the driver’s certificate names the insurer and the policyholder; if the driver is the policyholder, claims correspondence goes through that insurer’s claims line; if a leasing or rental company is the policyholder — common at Addison Lee, where drivers rent vehicles on an inclusive package — correspondence goes through the fleet operator’s nominated claims handler. Second, where the driver carries passengers as a self-employed sole trader, the driver is the named insured and there is no employer to bring into the action; vicarious liability, where it lies at all, sits with the operator who took the booking, not with the platform.

The platform’s role: top-up cover for drivers, not lead cover for passengers

Major UK platforms layer supplementary insurance on top of the driver’s own hire-and-reward certificate. Those layers are designed to fill gaps in the driver’s primary cover — the App-On with no booking state, the Trip-Active state for some heads of risk, the short post-drop-off window — not to be the lead defendant when a passenger is injured by the driver’s fault. The pattern is consistent across the platforms a UK passenger is most likely to be riding with:

• Uber (UK): the driver carries the hire-and-reward policy from a specialist underwriter (Aviva-backed schemes are common in the Uber driver segment). Uber adds its Partner Protection product, an accident, sickness and hospitalisation benefit underwritten through Allianz Partners — but Partner Protection is a driver-side benefit that pays the driver if they are unable to drive. It does not pay the passenger. Uber’s public help pages direct an injured passenger to claim against the driver’s hire-and-reward insurer.
• Bolt (UK): Bolt does not underwrite the vehicle. Zego (Markel Insurance is named in some affiliated schemes) is the most widely publicised insurtech partner for Bolt drivers in the UK. A passenger injured by Bolt driver fault claims against the driver’s certificate.
• Addison Lee: drivers rent vehicles on an inclusive package that bundles fleet insurance, MOT, servicing and maintenance. The policy is an Addison Lee fleet policy and the passenger’s claim is notified to the fleet’s nominated handler — the structural exception in the UK market and the cleanest passenger-claim route of any of the major platforms.
• FreeNow: driver provides the hire-and-reward policy. FreeNow adds an in-app safety report flow and passenger protections; cover detail varies by city and by whether the driver is on a private hire or hackney licence (FreeNow operates both fleets in different UK cities).

The platforms’ consistent message to an injured passenger is the same: report the incident through the in-app safety toolkit so the trip record is preserved, then pursue the claim against the driver’s hire-and-reward insurer. The platform’s own top-up cover may respond at the margins where the driver’s certificate fails to (for example, a coverage dispute about the app state at the moment of the collision), but that is not the route the passenger plans around. Always verify the current position on each platform’s help pages, because terms change.

Operator vicarious liability in London under PHV(L)A 1998 section 55

In London the operator licence is the gatekeeping licence. Section 2 of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 makes it an offence to operate a private hire vehicle without an operator’s licence from Transport for London; section 3 sets the standard the operator must meet; the operator’s acceptance of a booking is governed by the detailed framework derived from section 55 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 as applied to London by regulations under the 1998 Act. The operator licence conditions impose substantive duties — record-keeping for every booking, driver and vehicle checks before a job is accepted, complaints handling, data protection and accident reporting.

Where the operator’s breach of those statutory or contractual duties contributed to the passenger’s injury — for example, accepting a booking from a driver whose licence had been revoked, or failing to perform the vehicle check that would have flagged a defective brake — the operator can be joined as a defendant alongside the driver. The civil cause of action is a combination of breach of statutory duty, negligence and breach of the contract of carriage implied between the passenger and the operator. Vicarious liability in the strict common-law sense — the doctrine that an employer is liable for an employee’s torts in the course of employment — runs more weakly, because most platform drivers are self-employed under the PHV regime even where they are workers for employment-rights purposes (compare the Supreme Court’s decision in Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5 on worker status). The passenger claim therefore typically frames the operator’s liability through booking acceptance, statutory duty and the contract of carriage rather than through Salmond-style vicarious liability for tortious acts.

What this means in practice for a London passenger injured by Uber, Bolt, Addison Lee or FreeNow driver fault: the panel solicitor reviewing the claim will check whether the operator’s acceptance of the booking was lawful, whether the driver was a properly licensed and badged TfL PHV driver at the time, whether the vehicle was correctly plated, and whether any of the operator’s statutory duties under the 1998 Act framework were breached. Where they were, the operator is named as a defendant; where they were not, the operator is left out and the claim runs against the driver’s insurer alone.

Outside London: LGMPA 1976 Part II and the deemed contract under section 56

Outside London the regulator is the licensing authority of the district council in which the operator’s base sits, acting under Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. Section 55 sets the operator-licence requirement, section 55B governs sub-contracting between operators and section 56 contains the most important provision for a passenger claim: the contract for the carriage is deemed to be between the passenger and the operator who accepted the booking, irrespective of whether the operator itself provides the vehicle. The deemed contract is the spine of the passenger’s civil claim against the operator.

The civil-liability consequence is twofold. First, where the operator accepted the booking but the actual journey was performed by a driver of a different operator under a section 55B sub-contract, the passenger has two operator defendants — the booking operator under the section 56 deemed contract and the executing operator under its statutory duties. Pleadings often name both and run liability arguments in the alternative. Second, the operator’s duty to ensure the driver and vehicle were fit and properly licensed is a duty owed to the passenger under the deemed contract; breach can found liability in damages for the passenger’s personal injury directly, without needing to prove employer-style vicarious liability for the driver’s individual tortious acts.

Council-by-council variation matters. Some councils impose more onerous duties on operators — mandatory CCTV inside the vehicle, enhanced DBS-renewal periods, stricter convictions policies — than others. Where the passenger’s claim involves a specific allegation against the operator (for example, failing to act on an earlier complaint about the same driver), the council’s published licence conditions and policy are part of the evidence pack. CityGrip identifies the issuing licensing authority on day one and obtains its current public policy before naming the operator.

The OIC portal route for small-track passenger injury under the Civil Liability Act 2018

Where the value of pain, suffering and loss of amenity (PSLA) is £5,000 or less and the overall claim is under £10,000, the route is the Official Injury Claim portal at officialinjuryclaim.org.uk. The portal was set up under the Civil Liability Act 2018 reforms and is designed to be used by an injured claimant directly, without a solicitor on standard cases. It accepts claims by passengers in any vehicle — private car, taxi, hackney carriage or private hire vehicle — on the same tariff and the same procedural framework. The fact that the at-fault driver was the minicab driver carrying you, rather than another motorist, does not change the portal’s applicability.

The whiplash element of PSLA is fixed by tariff under the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 as amended by the Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/615). The duration-banded figures and the OIC route are set out in full on our whiplash compensation tariff guide. The amended tariff applies to accidents on or after 31 May 2025; the pre-amendment tariff continues to apply to earlier accidents. Non-whiplash PSLA is valued against the Judicial College Guidelines. Special damages — loss of earnings, medical expenses, damaged personal items, taxi-fare onward transport — are valued separately and sit outside the whiplash tariff.

Where the claim exits the small-claims track — injury value exceeds £5,000 PSLA, the claimant was an employee acting in the course of employment, the claimant was a child or protected party, or the claim is otherwise excluded under the Civil Procedure Rules — the route is a panel solicitor on a no win, no fee Conditional Fee Agreement. The wider picture for any personal injury claim after a car accident is on the standalone hub. Where you were a passenger in a private (non-PHV) vehicle - a friend's or family member's car rather than a licensed minicab - our parallel passenger accident claim page sets out that route. CityGrip’s role on this site is signposting; we refer personal injury work to an SRA-regulated panel solicitor with the referral arrangement disclosed at the point of instruction, in compliance with paragraph 5 of the SRA Code of Conduct on referral arrangements and with the FCA’s rules on claims management activities at CMCOB 4.3.

The passenger’s heads of loss: injury, earnings, items, transport, care

The principle behind the heads of loss is the common-law rule restitutio in integrum: damages restore the claimant, so far as money can, to the position they would have been in had the tort not occurred. For a passenger in a minicab collision that translates into a relatively standard list. General damages compensate for pain, suffering and loss of amenity — the physical injury itself, the period of recovery, the loss of activities the claimant enjoyed before the accident, and any lasting impairment. The valuation uses the Whiplash Injury Regulations tariff where the injury is whiplash-related and falls within the regulations, and the Judicial College Guidelines for every other category of injury.

Special damages cover the documented financial losses. Loss of earnings is net of tax and National Insurance for the period the claimant was unable to work — payslips and the SA302 tax calculation evidence the net figure; for self-employed claimants, the platform earnings statements, bank credits and tax returns evidence the loss. Medical expenses cover private physiotherapy where NHS waiting times make the recovery slower than it needs to be, prescription receipts, GP letter fees, and consultant fees where private specialist input is reasonable. Damaged personal items — the smashed phone, the broken glasses, the torn coat, the spilt laptop — are recoverable at replacement value against the original purchase proof.

Onward transport is recoverable in two forms: the immediate taxi fare from the scene to A&E or home, and the travel cost of medical appointments during recovery (HMRC mileage at the AMAP rate where the claimant drove themselves, public transport at the ticket cost, taxi fares where mobility limitations made public transport unreasonable). Dependency care — the gratuitous care a family member provided while the claimant could not manage at home — is recoverable at the standard non-commercial rate, typically a discounted multiple of the commercial home-care hourly rate. Receipts and contemporaneous notes are the evidence backbone.

Contributory negligence: the seatbelt tariff in Froom v Butcher [1976] QB 286

Contributory negligence reduces, but does not extinguish, the passenger’s damages. The statutory framework is the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, which directs the court to reduce damages to such extent as it thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant’s share of responsibility. For seatbelt non-use the leading tariff case is the Court of Appeal decision in Froom v Butcher [1976] QB 286, in which Lord Denning MR set the rule that has shaped English practice since: a 25% reduction where wearing the seatbelt would have prevented the injury altogether, and a 15% reduction where wearing the belt would have made the injury ‘a good deal less severe’. Where the belt would have made no difference — for example, the impact was such that the belt would not have changed the outcome — there is no reduction.

The tariff applies to passengers in PHVs as it applies to passengers in private cars. Front and rear-seat belts are compulsory under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and the Highway Code rule 99 directs every occupant of a car or van fitted with belts to wear them. A passenger seated in the rear without a belt who suffers head and neck injury in a frontal-impact collision will face a 25% reduction if the medical evidence shows the belt would have prevented the injury entirely, and a 15% reduction if it would have moderated severity. An insurer is likely to argue for the higher reduction; the claimant’s medico-legal report should address belt-impact biomechanics directly so the evidence does not concede the higher figure by default.

Other contributory-negligence arguments that arise in PHV cases include passenger conduct — distracting the driver, opening a door before the vehicle had fully stopped, refusing to use a fitted child seat — but these are fact-specific and the insurer carries the evidential burden of proving them on the balance of probabilities. The default starting point is no contributory negligence; the insurer has to make the case for any reduction.

Where the minicab driver was uninsured for hire and reward: the MIB route

A real risk in the minicab sector is the driver who carries fare-paying passengers on a social, domestic and pleasure policy rather than a proper hire-and-reward certificate. The SD&P policy does not satisfy section 143 RTA 1988 for the use being made; the policy is voided for that use; the driver is uninsured for the purpose of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau Agreements. Where this is the position, the passenger’s claim is made against the MIB under the MIB Uninsured Drivers’ Agreement 2015, which applies to accidents on or after 1 August 2015 and meets unsatisfied judgments for personal injury without monetary limit.

One MIB exclusion to be alert to is clause 8 of the 2015 Agreement, the knowingly-uninsured passenger exclusion. The MIB is not liable where the claimant knew or had reason to believe that the vehicle had been stolen or unlawfully taken, or that there was no or no effective insurance permitting the use at the time of the accident. For a passenger who booked through a TfL or council-licensed operator and accepted a vehicle carrying the correct plate and licence disc, the exclusion is unlikely to bite — the passenger could reasonably believe the vehicle was insured for hire and reward because the operator’s licence conditions require the operator to verify it. The exclusion is a heavier hurdle for a passenger who knowingly accepted an unlicensed touting driver outside a club at 2 a.m., which is one reason the safe and licensed messaging across the major platforms is so strong.

MIB claims run longer than ordinary insurer claims because the MIB has its own investigation and disclosure regime and reserves conservatively. The notice requirements under the 2015 Agreement are strict: the MIB must be joined as a defendant from the outset of proceedings and early written notice of the claim must be given. Where the at-fault driver also cannot be identified — a hit-and-run minicab journey is rare but it happens — the parallel Untraced Drivers’ Agreement applies and the police report under section 170 RTA 1988 within 24 hours is a procedural condition under that Agreement.

Time limits: section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980 and the section 28 minority extension

The headline time limit for personal injury is three years from the date of the accident or the date of knowledge if later, under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980 - our dedicated accident claim time limit page covers the section 14 date-of-knowledge extension, the section 28 minority and protected-party tolling and the MIB notification windows. The court has a residual discretion under section 33 of the same Act to extend the period where it is equitable to do so, but discretionary extension is not something a claimant should plan around — the case law on section 33 is heavily fact-dependent and the courts have repeatedly stressed that the burden is on the claimant to displace the limitation defence. The practical message is to issue, or to instruct a solicitor who will issue, well before the three-year anniversary.

For passengers who were under 18 at the date of the accident, time does not begin to run until the eighteenth birthday under section 28 of the Limitation Act 1980, giving until the twenty-first birthday to issue proceedings. For passengers who lack capacity within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 — for example, where a serious head injury caused by the collision itself has impaired decision-making capacity — time does not begin to run until capacity is regained, if ever. Property-damage claims (a broken laptop, a destroyed handbag) carry a separate six-year limit under section 2 of the same Act, but a sensible claimant rolls property damage into the personal-injury timetable so the whole claim is dealt with at once.

Two further deadlines worth noting on the practical timetable: the seven-day notice to the insurer under section 152 RTA 1988 before proceedings are issued, and the MIB’s own notice conditions under the 2015 Uninsured Drivers’ Agreement where that route applies - the full procedural walk-through is on our MIB uninsured driver claim page. Neither shortens the three-year limitation period, but both bite earlier in the procedural sequence and a missed notice can cause significant procedural disruption even where the substantive claim is strong. Where the at-fault minicab driver fled and could not be identified, the file routes instead through the MIB untraced driver claim procedure.

Continue inside the UK minicab vertical

The hub page for the whole UK minicab / PHV vertical sits at /minicab-accident-claims. Below are the pages most relevant to a passenger whose minicab driver was at fault.

• Minicab passenger accident claim (overview)
• Uber accident claims
• Bolt accident claims
• Addison Lee accident claims

Adjacent topics on the wider site

• Injury claim referral (panel solicitor)
• Uninsured driver accident support
• Who pays for what

Six-step procedural guide for an injured minicab passenger

1. Step 1

   Preserve the booking record and the trip identifier

   Open the platform app within minutes of the collision and screenshot the trip summary: booking time, pickup and drop-off, driver name, vehicle registration, fare and trip identifier. If you booked a local minicab firm by phone, write down the operator's name, the time you booked, the licence plate of the car that arrived and the driver's badge number. The trip identifier or operator booking reference is the single most important piece of evidence in a passenger claim - it locks the platform's own records to your account of the trip.

2. Step 2

   Collect section 170 details and the scene evidence

   Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires the driver to give names, addresses, vehicle registration and insurer details, and to report the collision to the police inside 24 hours where injury has occurred or details have not been exchanged at the scene. As a passenger, ask for those details, photograph all vehicles in situ before they are moved, photograph the registration plates and any visible damage, note the weather, lighting and road conditions, and record the names and phone numbers of independent witnesses. If you cannot do this safely yourself, ask a passing motorist or call 999.

3. Step 3

   Get medical attention and ask for the notes to be put in writing

   Attend A&E, an urgent care centre or your GP the same day, even where the injury feels minor. The hospital discharge summary and the GP notes anchor the claim's medical chronology. Tell the clinician this was a road traffic collision and that you were a passenger in a minicab - the words 'road traffic collision' on the records matter for later medical-legal review. Keep every prescription receipt and physiotherapy invoice.

4. Step 4

   Identify the driver's hire-and-reward insurer and notify them

   The driver's certificate of motor insurance names the insurer. Where the driver does not produce it, the operator (Uber, Bolt, Addison Lee, FreeNow or the local firm) is required by its licence conditions to hold the certificate on file and will release it on a passenger injury report. Notify the insurer in writing of your intention to claim under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 within seven days of the collision. The seven-day notice is the procedural protection that allows the insurer to investigate while the evidence is fresh.

5. Step 5

   Open a file on the right route - OIC portal or panel solicitor

   If the PSLA value of your injury is £5,000 or less and the overall claim is under £10,000, the route is the Official Injury Claim portal at officialinjuryclaim.org.uk under the Civil Liability Act 2018 reforms. The portal is designed to be used without a solicitor. If the injury is more serious - fracture, dislocation, head injury, prolonged loss of earnings - the route is a panel solicitor on a CFA. CityGrip's role on this site is signposting; we refer personal injury work to an SRA-regulated panel solicitor with the referral arrangement disclosed in writing.

6. Step 6

   Build the schedule of loss and the medical pack

   By month two, assemble the schedule of loss: net loss of earnings with payslips or self-assessment evidence, medical receipts, taxi-fare onward transport, replacement personal items with the original purchase proof, dependency-care valued at the standard hourly rate, and travel to medical appointments at HMRC mileage. The medical pack - discharge summary, GP records, physiotherapy notes, consultant letter where applicable and an independent medico-legal report - values general damages against the Whiplash Injury Regulations tariff or the Judicial College Guidelines.