A state worker driving her own car on the job is not a named insured under her employer's commercial auto policy, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled - handing Travelers a clean win.
The May 26, 2026 decision in Cynthia A. Roberge v. Travelers Property Casualty Company of America answered two certified questions from the First Circuit. Both broke for the insurer.
Cynthia Roberge worked for the State of Rhode Island. On October 18, 2018, with no state vehicle available, she drove her own car and was struck by an underinsured motorist. The injuries kept her from returning to work.
She filed a claim under the state's commercial auto policy, which carried $1,000,000 per accident in liability coverage but only the statutory minimums on UM/UIM - $25,000 for each person and $50,000 for each accident. Travelers denied her three times, explaining that underinsured motorist coverage was only afforded to "covered auto[s]" and that she was operating her own vehicle at the time of her injury.
The policy listed the State of Rhode Island as the named insured. For UM/UIM the state had selected coverage symbol "2" - "Owned 'Autos' Only" - while choosing symbol "1," "Any 'Auto,'" for liability. UM/UIM extended to "Anyone 'occupying' a covered 'auto' or a temporary substitute for a covered 'auto,'" with a temporary substitute defined as a vehicle used because the covered auto was "out of service because of its breakdown, repair, servicing, 'loss' or destruction." Roberge's personal car was neither.
She sued in Providence County Superior Court on April 4, 2021, raising five counts including breach of contract, declaratory judgment counts, a punitive-damages claim, and bad faith. Travelers removed the case to federal court, where the District of Rhode Island granted summary judgment to the carrier. The First Circuit then sent two questions of state law to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
The first asked whether the Martinelli exception - from Martinelli v. Travelers Ins. Cos. (R.I. 1996) - required treating an employee acting within the scope of her job as a named insured despite contrary policy language. The court said no.
Justice Erin Lynch Prata, writing for the majority, said the Martinelli dictum had only been considered in cases involving a "shareholder and general manager of a small, closely held company." Roberge "worked for a government entity that employed approximately 17,000 employees." Buying her argument, the court said, would mean every state employee hurt on the job could be a named insured - a result that "flies in the face of the contracted Policy between the state and Travelers."
Scope of employment, the court added, "is not outcome determinative." The policy's text "is, undoubtedly, the cornerstone."
The second question asked whether denying UM/UIM coverage while granting liability coverage to the same driver violated R.I. Gen. Laws § 27-7-2.1 or public policy. Again, no.
The statute, the court said, requires UM/UIM only where the policy provides "primary coverage for the insured motor vehicle." Roberge's car was insured under a separate USAA Casualty Insurance Company policy where she was the named insured, with UM/UIM bodily injury limits of $100,000. Travelers, the court noted, "calculated the state's premium costs based on coverage for a select number of vehicles" - 2,134 state-owned vehicles in the October 2017 renewal offer.
Quoting Malo v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, the court said the statute does not dictate "what class of persons must be extended coverage," nor does it "disallow any restriction on that class." That designation "is left to the terms of the particular insurance policy."
The court acknowledged "the seriousness of the collision and the injuries suffered by Roberge" but cited precedent that the UM statute "was not to guard against all economic loss" and that "reasonable limitations" protect insurers "from unwarranted claims."
Justice Robinson dissented on the first question, arguing the majority read Martinelli too narrowly. The dictum, he wrote, refers broadly to "an employee who is injured while acting within the scope of his or her employment" with "no adjective or other modifier" limiting it to small businesses. The result, he said, was "fundamentally unfair and contrary to the liberal spirit of Rhode Island's approach to UM/UIM coverage." Justice Goldberg participated in the decision but retired before publication.
For commercial auto carriers, the message is clean: tight named-insured language and "Owned 'Autos' Only" UM/UIM symbols will hold, even when an employee is on the clock. The Martinelli exception survives in Rhode Island, but after Roberge it stays where it started - in closely held companies, not large-employer fleets.
