Daniel Learns About Insurance: Mobile App Food Delivery Services Are These Drivers Ordering Up a Side of Liability?
Insurors Director of Communications Daniel Smith is far from an insurance expert, but he is trying to learn! In this series he will look into insurance industry and coverage questions he has about popular trends in day-to-day life. I have been accused before of being a "picky" eater. I think that is unwarranted, and mostly based on the fact that the foods I don't like are just common in the South. If it's served at a meat & three and isn't the meat or the bread – I probably don't eat it. I do however, eat a wide variety of other foods. Recently, my wife and I were "discussing" what we wanted for dinner, but could not come to an agreement. The closest we got was agreeing on Asian food – but she wanted sushi and I wanted Chinese. But we didn't have to agree any further, because she pulled up Uber Eats and ordered sushi for her and some Chinese noodles for me. It arrived at our home quickly and we both got what we wanted. Easy, right? There are many of these mobile app delivery services out there now – GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates, Yelp Eat 24 and the aforementioned Uber Eats just to name a few. They mostly work the same way, setting up partnerships with restaurants and then establishing a network of local drivers to deliver the food to the customer. The app takes a portion of the restaurant's revenue, and then some type of service or delivery fee is built in to pay the drivers. They also generally have a gratuity component to allow drivers to earn some additional income. They also have policies in place to screen the drivers (to different extents) and maintain the safety of the food. For example, Uber Eats has a closed bag policy, which means the driver is not to touch the food packaging or even review the order. Where the discrepancies come into place is when you look at how these different services handle the insurance component for their drivers.
written by Daniel Smith, CAE
with some being completely ambiguous as to what is covered. Here is what we do know: • • •
•
UberEats insurance only protects you while you are on active deliveries, not the time spent waiting for one, such as when you first open the app or in between deliveries. DoorDash is similar, but if drivers fail to maintain proper coverage of their own, the DoorDash policy may be voided completely. Grubhub does not clearly state what additional insurance coverage they provide. They require drivers to have personal auto policies, but the requirements – and coverages – seem to end there. Postmates only provides an excess policy "...in the event your personal policy does not adequately cover damages you cause to other parties.”1
What Do Your Clients Need? So what do your clients that are making these deliveries need? In the case of any of these apps, we know that a personal auto policy is unlikely to cover any claims that arise from commercial use. We also know that as delivery drivers (or cyclists in some case), there is some occupational accident exposure. These drivers could fall down stairs, slip on restaurant floors,
Having your food delivered to your door is great, but what is the real concern for drivers and restaurants?
Where Does Insurance Fit in the Equation? Each app seems to have a different policy for insurance,
14
The Tennessee Insuror