Uber's Pay-Per-Kilometre Insurance Explained
Uber now offers Australian drivers a comprehensive motor policy that covers both private driving and rideshare in one contract, priced partly on the kilometres you actually drive on trip. It is underwritten by Vero, distributed by Cover Genius through Uber Affinity Australia, and it is optional. You can still use any insurer that will cover ride-sourcing. The single most important detail is in the exclusions: it does not cover you while you are driving for another platform, and it does not cover food delivery, including Uber Eats.
The policy documents carry an effective date of 27 May 2026 and the product was publicly announced in Sydney on 13 August 2026.
How the pricing actually works
It is a hybrid, not pure pay-per-kilometre, and the distinction matters when you budget.
- A fixed monthly premium covers your private use. You pay it whether you drive for Uber that month or not.
- A variable rideshare premium is worked out at the end of each month, based on the on-trip kilometres you drove.
So a quiet month costs less than a busy one, but never nothing. Uber's own framing is that drivers "pay more in the months they drive more with the Uber app, and pay less when they drive less."
This is a genuine structural change for part-time drivers. A conventional rideshare policy charges the same annual premium whether you drive two shifts a week or ten, which quietly punishes anyone driving around another job. A usage-linked premium does not.
What it covers
| Cover | Notes |
|---|---|
| Theft, loss or damage to your vehicle | Both private and on-trip driving |
| Legal liability | |
| Glass | Excess-free for windscreen and window damage |
| New vehicle replacement | If written off within two years |
| Personal effects |
It sits on top of the on-trip partner support insurance Uber already provides at no cost. That existing cover is not replaced, and the new policy is aimed at the gap it has always left, which is damage to your own car.
The exclusions, and the one that catches multi-appers
The policy explicitly excludes:
- Use on any non-Uber platform. DiDi, Bolt, inDrive and Shebah are not covered.
- Food and delivery work, including Uber Eats.
- Tyres.
- Wear and tear.
- Mechanical failure.
Read the first two again if you run more than one app. Multi-apping is normal practice in Sydney and Melbourne, and a driver who accepts a DiDi trip while holding this policy is driving commercially with no comprehensive cover on their own car for that trip. The same applies to the driver who fills a quiet Tuesday with Uber Eats.
That does not make the policy bad. It makes it a policy for a single-platform Uber driver, and you need to know which one you are before you buy it. If you genuinely run two or three apps, a broader rideshare policy from an insurer that covers ride-sourcing generally will serve you better even if the headline number is worse.
Is it cheaper? Nobody can tell you that
Motor premiums are priced on your car, your age, your history, your postcode and your kilometres. Any article that tells you this product is cheaper than the alternatives without knowing those things is guessing.
What you can do is compare honestly. Get the quote in the driver app, then get two quotes from insurers that cover ride-sourcing, and convert all three to the same unit before comparing. Annual is the wrong unit here, because the whole point of this product is that the cost moves with your driving.
Convert it to cents per kilometre, then decide
This is the part most drivers skip. A usage-linked premium is a running cost, in the same category as fuel and tyres, and it belongs in your per-kilometre maths rather than in a once-a-year direct debit you have stopped noticing.
Take a normal month. Divide the fixed portion by the kilometres you drove that month, add the variable portion divided by your on-trip kilometres, and you have a number you can put beside fuel. For a driver covering 3,000 km a month, every $60 of monthly premium is 2 cents a kilometre.
Then put the result through the real earnings calculator alongside fuel, tyres and depreciation. Insurance is usually the second or third largest cost of driving, and it is almost always the one drivers have never expressed per hour.
What to check before you sign anything
- Which platforms you actually use. If the answer is more than Uber, this policy is the wrong shape.
- Whether you do any delivery work. Even occasionally.
- The excess, which the marketing pages do not state. It is in the Product Disclosure Statement, and a low premium with a high excess can be a worse deal on the one claim you make.
- What your current insurer says in writing. If you already hold a policy that covers ride-sourcing, switching for a small saving is rarely worth resetting your claims history.
The general rules have not changed, and the rideshare insurance guide still covers the layers every Australian driver needs regardless of who writes the policy.