Getting commercial car insurance to work and support family
22-8-2017 | IslamWeb
Question:
Assalaamu alaykum. May Allaah bless you. I would like to work for a company called Uber as a driver with my own car. The issue is that the company requires that the car be insured in order to be accepted to work with the company. In the country in which I live, insurance is not deemed obligatory by the government. However, the company makes it mandatory to have it in order to work with them. Is it acceptable to do this just in this case because of work? I live in a Western country and am studying, so I am looking to do this job in order to give me the freedom to go pray at the masjid as well as flexibility for my studies. It would also provide me with some extra income that I would need to support my family. Please enlighten me on this issue. May Allaah reward you.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The Resolution of the European Council for Fatwa (6-7) reads (about insurance):
“There are situations and environments that require solutions to address special conditions and meet their requirements, especially the case of Muslims in Europe, where commercial insurance prevails, and there is a dire need to benefit from it in order to prevent the dangers to which they are most exposed in their life in all its forms, the lack of an Islamic alternative – Takaaful (cooperative) insurance – and the difficulty to find it at the present time; so the Council issues a fatwa that commercial insurance is permissible in the following cases and what is similar to them:
- Cases of need for insurance to repel inconvenience and severe hardship, whereupon the existing deceit in commercial insurance system is forgiven; for example, in the following cases:
a. Insurance on Islamic institutions such as mosques, centers, schools, and so on.
b. Insurance on vehicles, machinery, equipment, houses and professional and commercial establishments, in order to avoid risks that cannot be covered, such as fire, theft, and the malfunction of the various facilities.
c. Health insurance in order to avoid the high costs that may be incurred by the insured and his family; this is either because of the absence of a free health coverage, or its slowness, or its low technical level.”
Since you are in a western country and you need to work with your car for that company, which requires that your car be insured by commercial insurance, then we hope that there is no harm in this based on the resolution above.
Allah knows best.