Many people have assumed in the past that their car, scooter or moped insurance covered them for just about anything. When Covid struck in 2020 food delivery drivers found that this is not the case.
Delivering food was becoming a good, part time job for many people, particularly young ones. When local restaurants had customers who wanted food delivered to their door (especially fast food, such as pizzas, burgers, kebabs etc) they would motor over to the shop, pick the food up, and deliver it. Easy peasy.
Or at least it seemed it until the police started stopping them regularly, and charging them with driving without insurance.
It has always been the case that delivering food meant extra insurance, specifically designed for food delivery people. Indeed the bigger delivery companies like Deliveroo and Just Eat insisted on their drivers getting dedicated insurance for food delivery drivers before they could apply for a job. The problem was that smaller businesses were not so careful and a lot if drivers were under-insured.
Things came to a head during the Covid lockdowns. Families that were used to having a regular takeout meal found that they couldn't get out to buy one, and the shops could only deliver them, not sell them straight off the premises. The number of delivery drivers escalated; and the police, aided by a much lower level of traffic, were quick to respond and started stopping these people riding their scooters and mopeds (much easier to handle in heavy traffic) and checking their insurance details. Quite a few lost their driving licences - and, with them, their jobs - as a result.
The insurance industry went into overdrive selling policies that covered hot food delivery drivers but they weren't cheap - young motorists dashing to get as many deliveries done as possible, and earning the maximum number of tips, were far more likely to have accidents, particularly when they were concentrating more on the app which told them where to go than on traffic!
The fast food delivery market is now booming even after Covid has subsided - hopefully the delivery companies who are making so much money will spend some of it on teaching their staff how to stay safe on the roads.
A number of delivery staff switched to working by bicycle. The advantages of bikes are partly economic, but cycling is excellent exercise too; and a bicycle can often be ridden right up to the customer's door. E-bikes in particular were popular; they needed no compulsory insurance road tax or petrol! Cycling for long periods could be tiring however and the bikes were often the target for thieves. Insuring a cycle isn't obligatory yet but bicycle insurance is becoming a very popular insurance product amongst cyclist delivery people.