What insurance actually covers a Pathao or inDrive rider hurt on the job

Injol Shrestha was riding for Pathao when a car hit him near Kupondole in September 2020. The crash left him with medical bills of about Rs 1,50,000 and, for a while, unable to walk without crutches. When he asked Pathao for help, the company told him it wasn't liable for the damages. Around the same time, another Pathao rider, Pawan Khadka, was beaten and robbed by a passenger; his fellow riders crowdfunded his treatment because the platform didn't respond. Both cases became public only because riders protested, and Pathao announced its first rider insurance policy that December.

Six years later, Pathao and inDrive both run real accident insurance schemes for their riders. Most riders still don't know what the sticker on their bike's windscreen, the one proving they've paid for "third-party insurance," actually covers. It isn't them.

What "third-party insurance" actually protects

Every registered vehicle in Nepal carries mandatory third-party (TP) insurance under the Motor Vehicles and Transport Management Act, 2049. It's cheap: one industry rate table puts the annual premium for a two-wheeler up to 150cc at roughly Rs 1,707, rising to about Rs 2,159 above 250cc. Every Pathao and inDrive rider's bike already has this.

The name is literal, and Nepali courts have said so directly. A Nepal Kanoon Patrika ruling states that third-party insurance "is targeted purely at third parties, not for the purpose of covering loss or injury to the vehicle's own driver." An industry explainer puts it the same way: the driver does not fall within the scope of third-party insurance at all.

In 2016, the Insurance Board (now the Nepal Insurance Authority) widened compulsory motor insurance to add a payout for the pillion passenger riding behind the driver: Rs 5,00,000 for death, up to Rs 3,00,000 for medical treatment, a Rs 500-a-day caretaker allowance for up to 45 days, and Rs 50,000 for funeral costs. That's real money, and it matters for ride-hailing specifically, because the person on the back of a Pathao bike, or in the passenger seat of an inDrive car, is exactly the "third party" this cover was built for.

The rider or driver doing the actual work is not that third party. If they crash and hurt themselves, this compulsory insurance pays nothing toward their own injury.

What Pathao and inDrive actually pay their own riders

Both platforms built their own accident insurance to cover exactly the gap above, though neither did it from day one.

Pathao's cover has grown substantially since its first version: a Rs 5,00,000 death payout and Rs 1,00,000 medical cover, announced in December 2020 only after riders like Shrestha and Khadka went public with cases the company had initially waved off.

The premium on both schemes is paid by the platform, not deducted from the rider's earnings, and both explicitly exclude offline rides, meaning any trip arranged outside the app carries no cover at all.

The catch: whether you were "active" when it happened

This is where the real risk sits, and it isn't theoretical. In July 2026, Kathmandu Post reported on Ganesh Nepali, a ride-share driver who died by self-immolation after mounting financial pressure, including a bike loan and a fine from city police over a parking clamp. When the paper contacted Pathao, inDrive, and Yango to ask about his status, every platform said he was not currently an active driver on their app. One company noted he'd completed roughly 300 trips historically but "may have been accepting rides outside the platform." A researcher quoted in the piece put it plainly: Nepal's labour laws haven't caught up with platform-based work.

That case wasn't about an insurance claim directly, but it shows exactly how a dispute plays out. Whether a rider was "on the app" at the moment of a crash is recorded by the platform itself, and the platform is also the party deciding whether to honour a claim. If you're riding for two or three apps in parallel, as many Kathmandu riders do to fill gaps between fares, keep track of which app you had open when anything happens; it's the difference between a covered claim and a denied one.

Why the law doesn't require any of this

Section 55 of the Labour Act, 2074 requires an employer to buy at least Rs 7,00,000 of accident insurance for every worker, with the entire premium paid by the employer, not deducted from wages. If Pathao or inDrive riders were legally employees, this would already apply to them regardless of what the platforms chose to offer voluntarily.

They aren't treated as employees. Nepal has no statutory definition of a "gig worker," and platform riders sit outside the standard reach of labour law, closer to independent contractors hiring out their own bike and time. That's the structural reason the accident insurance above exists as a company policy Pathao and inDrive chose to offer, largely in response to rider pressure, rather than a legal floor they're required to meet. It's also why a platform can say "not an active driver" and walk away from a case with comparatively little legal exposure. This gap between what the Labour Act guarantees an employee and what a platform rider actually gets sits behind the income tax questions gig riders separately have to navigate too; in both cases, the law hasn't caught up with the arrangement.

What to add if you're doing this full-time

Platform insurance is real but narrow: online rides only, capped payouts, and a claims process the platform itself controls. A few things sit underneath it as backup, though none of them are accident-specific or built for gig income replacement.

Nepal's Health Insurance Program costs Rs 3,500 a year for a family of up to five (Rs 700 more per extra member) and pays up to Rs 1,00,000 in annual benefits, covering roughly 1,133 types of medicine. It's a general health scheme, not an accident policy, and a peer-reviewed evaluation found informal-sector enrollment lagging because of unclear procedures and thin benefit awareness. It's still the cheapest medical backstop available if something happens on a day you weren't logged into any app. The Health Insurance Program breakdown covers what the Rs 1 lakh ceiling buys in more detail.

The Social Security Fund's self-employed track, opened to informal and self-employed workers since August 2023, covers medical treatment at a network of hospitals, a disability pension, and survivor benefits. The cost is steep for someone without an employer topping it up: 31% of your self-declared monthly salary, against a basic-salary band of roughly Rs 9,385 to Rs 28,155, with no employer or government share reducing it. The SSF for the self-employed post has the full contribution math and why uptake has stayed low.

Individual personal accident insurance exists as a standalone product from insurers including Shikhar Insurance and Prabhu Insurance. Neither publishes a premium or sum-assured figure on its own website; both direct you to call for a quote, which means you cannot price this in advance the way you can a bank FD or a term life policy. If you're riding full-time and want a number bigger than what the platform offers, this is worth a phone call, but go in knowing you won't get an instant online quote.

None of this replaces having your own vehicle insurance in order. A comprehensive vs third-party vehicle insurance comparison is worth reading before you decide the compulsory TP policy is "enough," because for the rider driving it, it never was.

What you actually need to know

1. The insurance sticker on the bike doesn't cover the person driving it. Compulsory third-party insurance protects the person you hit, and since 2016, the passenger riding with you. It was never built to pay out for your own injury.
2. Pathao and inDrive both now offer real accident cover, but only for online rides, and only Pathao publishes a specific claims window (30 days to report, 30 working days to settle).
3. "Active driver" status is decided by the platform, and it can be disputed. A documented 2026 case shows three platforms distancing themselves from a driver's status when a journalist asked. Keep your own record of which app you were on.

If you ride for a platform and want a second opinion on what your accident cover actually promises, email me at parjanya57@gmail.com.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the Protect What You've Saved section.