Start here: the borrowed car's insurance usually gets hit first

If you were DoorDashing in Watertown in a friend's or family member's car, hit a pothole that sent you into a curb, a parked car, or a ditch, and got hurt, the first policy in line is usually the insurance on the car you were driving.

That's the part most people don't realize.

Car insurance usually follows the vehicle before it follows the driver. So if you borrowed your sister's SUV and wrecked it on 9th Avenue SE or near Kemp Avenue after dropping into a crater the city had already been warned about, her insurer is probably the first one dealing with property damage and liability.

Then the fighting starts.

Because the second that insurer hears you were delivering food for DoorDash, it may try to deny coverage under a business-use exclusion. Some personal policies do that. Some don't. Some only do it if the policyholder was driving for pay all the time. The exact wording matters, and the fine print is where this gets ugly.

If the borrowed car was a rental, the damage waiver matters too. A lot of people think the waiver covers everything. It usually doesn't. It may cover damage to the rental car itself, but not your injuries, not the other driver's injuries, and not every fee the rental company piles on afterward.

DoorDash is not the same thing as workers comp

Here's the uncomfortable truth: DoorDash drivers are usually treated as independent contractors, not employees.

That means standard South Dakota workers comp often does not automatically apply the way it would for a school district employee, a warehouse worker, or a city crew member.

So if someone is pressuring you not to "file workers comp," first ask a basic question: who exactly is your employer?

If you dash under your own account, DoorDash may not be your employer for workers comp purposes at all. If you were driving through a local restaurant arrangement, a delivery fleet, or some side setup where a company controlled your schedule and pay, then the "don't file" pressure matters a lot more. A company that knows you might qualify as an employee sometimes hopes you'll stay confused long enough to miss deadlines.

That's not paranoia. That's how these cases go.

DoorDash does have contingent auto coverage in some situations, but it is not a substitute for workers comp, and it does not magically fix damage to a borrowed car. It usually comes into play only during an active delivery and mostly for liability to others, not for your own injuries or your own vehicle damage.

The city pothole claim is a separate fight, and South Dakota is strict

If Watertown had notice of the pothole and never fixed it, that can matter.

But "the city knew" is not enough by itself. You need proof. Prior complaints. Work orders. Photos. 911 or public works reports. Witnesses who saw the same hole for days or weeks. In late March, when South Dakota freeze-thaw cycles are chewing up pavement, potholes can open fast. The city will absolutely argue this one formed too recently for them to fix it.

That's why photos from the same day matter.

So does the exact location. "Somewhere off Highway 212" is weak. "Eastbound lane near the intersection by Prairie Lakes, just before the turn onto 10th Street SE" is better.

Claims against a city can die early in South Dakota because public-entity notice rules are shorter and harsher than the general three-year personal injury deadline. South Dakota's three-year statute of limitations exists for injury claims, yes. But for a city claim, waiting around because an adjuster says "we're reviewing it" is how people get burned.

Who may end up paying

This is the order people usually have to sort through:

• the borrowed car's insurance first, unless business-use language knocks it out
• DoorDash or other delivery-platform coverage only if the app status and trip details trigger it
• your own auto policy, if you have one that extends coverage
• a claim against Watertown if the pothole was reported and the city failed to act
• medical coverage through your own health insurance while everybody else stalls and points fingers

That last part is what really stings. Your body doesn't wait for insurance companies to stop acting cute.

If your "boss" is telling you not to file anything, save that message

Save the text. Screenshot the app messages. Keep the call log.

If the pressure came from a local supervisor, dispatcher, restaurant manager, or fleet operator, that matters. It shows somebody was trying to shape your claim before the facts were even sorted out.

Also save:

Photos of the pothole and the car damage.

The police crash report.

The DoorDash app screen showing you were on an active delivery.

Names of anyone who knew that pothole was there before you hit it.

Medical records from the same day, even if you thought it was "just soreness." A lot of crash injuries on rough roads don't fully show up until the next morning.

Borrowed car crashes get personal fast

If it was your friend's car, now their deductible is on the table. Their rates may go up. If it was a rental, the rental company may come after you for loss of use, towing, storage, and administrative junk fees that feel made up because half the time they basically are.

And if the city denies fault, everybody turns and looks at you.

That's why the sequence matters more than people think. In a Watertown pothole crash, there can be four separate problems moving at once: your injury claim, the borrowed car damage, the platform coverage question, and the city's notice deadline.

Miss one, and the others get a lot more expensive.

Especially in South Dakota, where roads can go from bare pavement to broken edges overnight. Out on places like Highway 44 between Rapid City and the Badlands, you're dealing with no shoulders and no lights. In Watertown, the danger is different. It's spring breakup, patchwork pavement, traffic around schools and delivery stops, and a city claim process that won't forgive a sloppy timeline.

If somebody above you is saying "don't file," hear what they're really saying: let the clock run while they figure out how to make this your problem.