Who is insured when someone else drives your car?

5 September 2026

This is the most important thing to understand about hiring a driver for your own car, and the thing most services explain least clearly. So here it is plainly.

Your policy is the one that matters

When a RideBack driver drives your vehicle, the vehicle is still yours, still registered by you, and still insured by you. Your comprehensive motor policy is the primary cover. Ours is not a substitute for it, and no driver service in Australia can make your policy cover something it does not.

The three things that catch people out

• Listed-driver policies. Some cheaper policies only cover drivers named on them. If yours is one of these, a driver who is not named is not covered.
• Age and experience restrictions. Policies with a “no driver under 25” clause do exactly what they say, whoever is behind the wheel.
• Undeclared modifications. If the car has changes your insurer does not know about, that can affect a claim regardless of who was driving.

What we do about it

We ask you to confirm, when you book, that your vehicle is registered, roadworthy, comprehensively insured, and that your policy has no restriction on who may drive. That confirmation is not paperwork for its own sake — it is the thing that makes the trip safe to run.

Where our driver is at fault for damage to your car, we contribute towards your insurance excess, and for small damage you would rather not claim on we may cover the repair instead. Where the vehicle was uninsured, unregistered or unroadworthy, we cannot — because at that point there is no policy for us to sit behind.

The full detail is in sections 6 and 7 of our terms. It is worth five minutes of your time before your first booking.

A small habit worth having

Walk around the car with your driver before you set off, and take a couple of photos. It takes thirty seconds, it protects both of you, and it turns any later conversation about a scratch into a short one.