Just Eat Food Delivery Insurance - what do you need?

If you're considering signing up to be a Just Eat delivery driver, you may have a number of questions about what insurances you'll require before you begin working. This article will aim to cover everything you'll need to know about Just Eat delivery driver insurances.

• What insurance does Just Eat provide for its drivers?
• What Just Eat insurances do I need to buy?
• Just Eat insurance cost
• How can I save money on JustEat delivery driver insurance?
• Food delivery insurance

What insurance does Just Eat provide for their drivers?

There are two ways to drive for Just Eat—as an independent contractor or a salaried worker. The insurance provided/required is different for these two options:

Besides vehicle insurance, delivery drivers can also benefit from other types of insurance like personal accident or illness cover. Unfortunately, as of December 2022, Just Eat does not provide any of these types of insurance coverages for its drivers while they are working with the company. Therefore, it is your responsibility to ensure you're fully protected before taking to the roads to deliver with Just Eat.

This is a situation fairly unique to Just Eat within the UK market—companies like UberEats, Deliveroo Insurance and Amazon all provide some level of personal accident and other coverages for their drivers while they’re out on delivery, so keep in mind the additional cost of coverage before signing up to work with them.

What insurances do I need to deliver with Just Eat?

Vehicle cover

As a Just Eat delivery driver working as an independent contractor (as mentioned above, salaried workers won't need to worry about this), the insurance needed for delivery driving is a form of 'hire and reward' insurance.

You have two options to make sure your vehicle is covered for hire & reward for delivery driving: a) getting a new policy that would typically cover both your commercial and your personal driving or b) getting top-up (PAYG) cover to cover your delivery driving, which would work in addition to your existing personal motor insurance. There are benefits and disadvantages to both options, explained below.

Either way, you are required to have commercial insurance on your vehicle (car or motorbike) to protect it while it is in use for work/commercial purposes, and when making deliveries a motorist needs a specific type of commercial insurance called 'hire and reward'. Commercial insurance will cover you for unlimited business travel with no set destinations (perfect for delivery drivers). Lower levels of business car insurance aren’t typically appropriate for delivery drivers—the certificate of motor insurance must cover hire & reward (not excluding delivery driving).

Commercial insurance, like personal, typically comes in three categories—Third Party Only, Third Party, Fire and Theft or Comprehensive. Policies typically include your Social, Domestic & Pleasure cover within them, so you'll be protected at all times, whether you're working or not.

Option a) Combined Hire & Reward + Social, Domestic & Pleasure Insurance

If you want one insurance policy that covers both delivery driving and personal driving, look for a combined H&R and SD&P policy. These are typically sold as annual or 30-day contracts.

A few specialist providers offer these policies, and you can look for quotes below:

Option b) Top Up Insurance

While one option for getting insured as a delivery driver is buying an all-in-one policy that covers both SD&P driving as well as delivery driving, it also may be possible to buy 'top-up' hire & reward cover that only covers delivery driving. In that case, a motorist still needs underlying SD&P insurance to cover their personal driving.

Top-up cover is typically sold as a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) contract—e.g. pay per hour when you're logged into the app.

Top-up cover can be especially useful if you're working less than 20 hours per week or so as a delivery driver, as it's possible to sign up to the likes of Insurance 4 Couriers, Inshur or Zego.

This only works if your current SD&P insurance provider has approved of the set-up—and many will NOT (if that's the case, it may be necessary to switch insurance providers).

It's important to remember to inform your SD&P insurance provider that you're taking delivery work, and to make sure they're happy with you working with a top-up (may also be called 'pay-as-you-go') hire & reward provider. Many insurers don't accept coverage from pay-as-you-go providers, so you risk voiding your entire policy if you fail to tell them you're using your vehicle for delivery work and get approval. We contacted the UK's top providers to see if they would accept top-up hire and reward, and the results were startling. Take a look at our research to see if your provider might/might not accept Pay-As-You-Go/Top-Up insurance.

Goods-in-transit cover

As of the writing of this article, Just Eat doesn’t require its drivers to hold any form of Goods in Transit insurance. This isn’t surprising given the relatively low value of the goods a food delivery driver is transporting. If you undertake other delivery work for other courier companies, however, it’ll be worth reviewing whether or not goods-in-transit insurance would make sense for you.

Public Liability Insurance

Couriers and delivery drivers come into contact with the public on a regular basis, meaning there is always a risk of causing injury or damage to property. Compensation claims can be expensive, even for minor injuries, so it’s certainly worth keeping public liability in mind to protect financially against these situations.

The average annual cost of a public liability insurance policy starts from around £50 for the year, so wouldn't set you back too much. Even a minor injury to a third party could cost you £000’s in compensation and legal fees—AXA has previously reported that the average public liability settlement is around £13,500 in the UK, making the insurance premium a small price to pay in comparison to the potential cost.

Double check with your vehicle delivery insurance provider, as some policies include complementary public liability coverage.

Injury/Accident Insurance

Like many workers in the UK, you won’t have any injury or accident coverage while working as a Just Eat delivery driver. This means if you’re injured and unable to work your income may be severely affected. Injury/accident insurances will help to mitigate the risks involved with being an independent contractor.

Policies start as low as £40 per year for a non-smoking 35 year old, and will typically pay between 55-70% of your pre-tax earnings up to a set amount. More expensive policies typically cover you for a maximum of one year out of work, with some even going up to two full years (typically the longest duration for a UK injury & sickness policy, in rare cases they can go up to 5 years however).

Just Eat insurance cost

Scooters

Insuring a scooter for delivery driving starts from around £50 a month or £1,000 per year, for policies including BOTH social, domestic & pleasure (SD&P) driving as well as the delivery driving.

Top-up hire & reward insurance for a scooter that only covers the delivery driving would cost from around 50p per hour. (In this case, a separate SD&P policy is needed to cover personal driving.)

Cars

Insurance for a car is more expensive. While cover can apparently start from as little as £1,000 per year, our test quotations found most quotes between £1,900 and £2,300 for Just Eat car insurance, which includes your traditional SD&P coverage within it. This is around 4X the average cost of car insurance in the UK for a car with just personal and commuting use.

Top-up hire & reward for a car starts from 80p per hour, but only covers delivery driving not personal driving.

Why is insurance so much more expensive for a Just Eat driver? It really comes down to three factors:

Full-time Just Eat delivery drivers can expect, on average, to log potentially 100 miles per workday for a 5-7 hour shift. You’ll need to anticipate logging 3X more miles than a SD&P driver, who would typically put 7,600 miles on their cars each year, and the impact this will have on the wear & tear of your vehicle.

Our research indicated a large number of Just Eat drivers opt to utilize a pay-as-you-go/pay monthly coverage for their hire & reward delivery insurance cover—with Zego and MCE Insurance proving especially popular among couriers. The cost for these can start at as little as £0.50 per hour for a small 125cc motorbike (via Zego).

However, be aware that some insurance providers will invalidate your existing SD&P policy if you opt for H&R coverage through a 'pay-as-you-go' policy, so make sure to check with your insurer before signing up.

Here are some quotes we found for combined SD&P and hire & reward for delivery driving policies for a car:

How can I save money on Just Eat delivery driver insurance?

The methods you can use to save money on your delivery insurance are very similar to those you would use to save on your regular car insurance.

If you’re working less than 20 hours per week, some drivers felt pay-as-you-go hire & reward policies (that you can find from the likes of Zego and MCE) offered a better value than full-time coverage, but make sure to check with your primary insurance provider to ensure you’re still covered.

Food delivery insurance

Food delivery insurance is a legal requirement for all drivers in the UK. Any courier in the country must have what's known as hire and reward insurance no matter if they're delivering food, shopping, or other goods. Drivers can also benefit from public liability insurance in case your driving causes damage or injury to someone while you're working.

If you're planning on using a vehicle you also use for social, domestic and pleasure, you will most likely need to get an extended policy to cover your food deliveries. Some providers do not offer this but it's worth contacting your insurer to see if you can get delivery driving included.

If they won't insure you, ask if they will allow you to get an add-on from another company. If they don't, you will need to find a new vehicle insurance policy to cover your driving when you are and aren't working.

Some food delivery companies or independent restaurants with their own pool of drivers provide some form of cover, but this differs between operators.

We have written a number of guides about insurance needed for other food delivery companies which you can find here: