How Uber Is Limiting Its Liability To Raid Its Insurance Reserves & Fund Robotaxis

from ConsumerWatchdog.org 

Report Findings

• Uber has committed $10 billion to purchasing robotaxis, according to recent reporting from the Financial Times, as it has socked away $12 billion via a complex, dark money insurance structure that allows it to hoard billions in self-funded insurance reserves. The company’s goal appears to be to strictly limit its own liability for car crashes, via tort reform efforts nationwide, so that it can use the reserves to finance a dangerous robocar future, instead of paying people hurt or killed by its drivers and operations.

• While Uber claims its insurance premiums are excessive, the company self-funds nearly 95% of its risk, according to public documents. Toward that end, Uber executives formed a captive insurer in Hawaii— Aleka Insurance Inc. Aleka is run by Uber executives, and is a wholly-owned Uber subsidiary exclusively handling Uber’s self-insurance. Uber has accumulated $12.46 billion in insurance reserves in 2025, a 27% increase from the $9.8 billion in reserves in 2024, and nearly doubling its $6.7 billion reserves in 2023. By internalizing nearly 95% of its insurance risk, Uber maintains control over premium flows generated from rides, rather than relying on traditional third-party insurers. Since the money is reserved for claims payout, it is not taxed as profits would be.

• The company’s insurance reserves grew nearly twice as much as trips made by drivers between 2023 and 2025, according to Uber’s own financial statements, indicating that Uber may be over-reserving. More evidence of over-reserving is the fact that commercial insurance, as well as insurance for taxis, is charged at about 6 cents per mile, according to a review by Consumer Watchdog. A healthy auto insurance company in California keeps 100-120% of premiums as a reserve. By our estimation that means Uber should be holding between $4.5 and $5.5 billion in reserves, not $12.46 billion. Demonstrating how the company considers its insurance reserves fungible, Uber transferred about $4.1 billion from its insurance reserves to cash on its balance sheet, according to its financial disclosures, during 2024 and 2025. (2025 annual report, pg. 122; 2024 annual report, pg. 128)

• Aleka Insurance’s entire board and executive committee are or have been executives at the parent company Uber. Since Aleka is a privately-held, wholly owned subsidiary, Uber is under no obligation to disclose any information on the company’s finances and can instead fold Aleka’s financials into their own—allowing Uber executives to obfuscate what would otherwise be public information.

• Uber’s legislative and ballot measure efforts, such as lowering mandated insurance coverage requirements in California and restricting legal recovery in states across America, will decrease the amount paid out to victims, allowing excess reserves to accumulate. These retained funds can be redirected toward Uber’s $10 billion robotaxi expansion and be accounted for as costs in the year they are spent, rather than profits in . 1the year the dollars were made—creating a tax shelter for the company. That cash could be taxed in a year when Uber made a big investment and would have less profit to tax.

• Uber’s top public policy executive misrepresented the company’s insurance structure to the California legislature in 2025 when securing a reduction in uninsured motorists coverage through SB 371. “In LA County, 45% of every fare is a straight pass-through to government-mandated insurance,” Ramona Prieto, Uber’s head of public policy, told the Assembly Standing Committee on Communications and Conveyance on July 16, 2025. In fact, the company was paying itself for insurance and at a rate that it set and allowed its reserves to grow by nearly 100% from 2023 to 2025. In other words, Uber appears to be overcharging itself for insurance premiums that it claimed was bleeding its riders dry in order to secure a reprieve from a state legislative mandate.

• Unbeknownst to the California legislature, Uber made its executives’ compensation contingent on passing SB 371 and other “insurance reform” efforts. SB 371 was specifically named in its proxy, as was insurance reform advocacy. Insurance reform was a specific performance goal for Jill Hazelbaker, Uber’s Chief Marketing Officer and SVP, Public Affairs; Chief Legal Officer Tony West; President and COO Andrew Macdonald and CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah. The bonus payment added roughly $516,000 to Hazelbaker’s pay. Uber promoted Hazelbaker on May 11th to President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer. The promotion came with a $5,000,000 equity grant — $3,750,000 in Restricted Stock Units plus a $1,250,000 stock option award, per Uber’s 8-K filing. Ramona Prieto has a “shadow” executive bonus strategy not disclosed to shareholders. Her fiancé Juan Rodriguez is a principal in the campaign consulting firm Bearstar and the media buying firm Polaris, which were paid a total of $9.2 million, thus far, in 2026 for consulting and advertising related to Uber’s ballot measure to limit liability for accident victims.

• Uber’s investment in a 2026 California ballot measure restricting victims’ medical recovery and access to contingency fee attorneys will allow it to free itself from liability and open up its “piggy bank” of insurance reserves for investing in its rollout of robotaxis. Those robotaxis, freed from full liability for injuries or death, could give Uber a “license to kill.”

• Uber’s record with robotaxis is disastrous, as outlined in Consumer Watchdog’s previous report “License To Kill: How Uber’s Rush To Close the Courthouse Doors and Roll Out Robocars Threatens Public Safety.” Uber’s robocar rollout in Arizona was the first and only known instance of a robocar killing a human being. Uber has failed to test its robocars to the degree that Waymo has, and its cars are more cheaply made with fewer sensors. There can be no more dangerous a situation than giving a company whose philosophy is “move fast and break things” the keys to $10 billion worth of robocars with little liability or legal accountability for the injuries they cause. 

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