UberEats Delivery Insurance - what do you need?

Many new UberEats drivers and riders have questions about what insurances you need to make sure you’re fully protected—this article will answer those and tell you everything you need to know before signing up as an UberEats delivery driver.

• What insurance does UberEats provide for its drivers?
• What UberEats insurances do I need to buy?

You may be wondering what your earning potential is with UberEats as well—we compared hourly income while working for Deliveroo, JustEat and UberEats, so take a look if you're wondering which pays best.

What insurance does UberEats provide for its drivers?

While UberEats doesn't provide delivery driver insurance, they do provide some insurances to its drivers and riders while they’re in the process of delivering food to customers. Find below a brief summary of the Uber/UberEats insurance policy:

For full details, see the policy wordings available on the Uber site here . On-trip is defined asfrom the moment of accepting a trip or food delivery request, through to completion of the request and for 15 minutes after completion. Off-trip is any time you are not using providing services using the Uber app.

Those working for UberEats are considered ‘delivery partners’, therefore the coverage for injury/sickness is considerably lower than if you were driving passengers for Uber. Uber employs its ‘partners’ as independent contractors, so they don’t provide any protection for your vehicle—and even the injury and sickness coverage is much lower, and for a shorter duration, than you’d expect from a traditional insurance policy.

What UberEats insurances do I need to buy?

As a UberEats delivery driver, it's critical to ensure you have the right vehicle coverages.

Cars, mopeds and scooters are required by law to have both social, domestic and pleasure insurance (this covers personal driving) and hire & reward insurance (to cover delivery driving).

This can be accomplished in one of a few ways.

There are benefits and disadvantages to both, explained below. And you can read more about delivery driver cover here.

Commercial Vehicle (Courier/Delivery Driver) Insurance

If you’re using a motorbike, scooter or car to perform UberEats deliveries, you’ll require food delivery hire & reward insurance on your vehicle that covers this type of driving—specifically, your certificate of motor insurance must cover food delivery or hire and reward not excluding food delivery.

Like personal vehicle insurance, this type of commercial insurance is generally categorised into three categories: Comprehensive, Third-Party, Fire and Theft or Third-Party-Only.

Commercial insurance for hire & reward covers your vehicle for the longer journeys/distances that couriers and delivery drivers typically travel, and is a legal requirement for anyone using their vehicle over long-distances for courier/delivery purposes in the UK.

You’ll be required to submit your insurance papers before completing your signing-up process with UberEats, and you won’t be covered by your existing Social, Domestic & Pleasure personal car policy.

Now, there are some insurance companies that will automatically upload your insurance certificate directly to your Uber account:

It's possible to get an annual insurance policy for delivery drivers that covers all of your driving: work and personal. Some UberEats partners, however, choose to utilize a pay-as-you-go, top-up Hire & Reward policy that only covers the delivery driving and essentially sits on top of an existing SD&P insurance policy that only covers personal driving.

There are benefits to doing this—for example, PAYG/top-up H&R insurance companies, many of whom have been created to support the growing food delivery/courier market, have flexible payment options (e.g. pay-as-you-go contracts with no cancellation fee) that can be very useful for delivery drivers, especially for those who view UberEats as a short-term or secondary income source.

However, do be cautious, as many traditional insurance providers do not allow drivers or riders to use separate top-up/short-term insurances, and will void your policy if they discover you’ve been working under a top-up H&R policy without informing or checking with them. The reasons for this are covered in detail in the FAQs.

We've contacted the UK's largest car insurers to see whether or not they'll accept "top-up/PAYG" Hire & Reward as valid—you can read all of their answers here.

Goods-in-transit cover

As deliveries made by UberEats are typically low in value, you are not currently required to hold any form of Goods in Transit insurance. If you are going to be undertaking other courier work, and delivering more expensive goods, it may be worth considering.

Public Liability Insurance

Many delivery driver policies will include a form of public liability within the policy. Double check with providers, to be sure. This type of cover can protect against accidental injury or damage that can occur to third parties during the delivery process. The vehicle insurance would cover injury or damage to a third party when behind the wheel, but a public liability policy can protect at other times (e.g. when walking from a vehicle to a property).

If you’re looking to get your own public liability policy (e.g. if the vehicle policy doesn't cover this or you want a larger coverage value) then policies start as low as £58 per year or less, so it’s definitely worth considering if you have any concerns.

Injury/Accident Insurance

As mentioned above, UberEats does offer some coverage if you’re injured, involved in an accident or become unwell while working with them. The policies are not that extensive, and for cyclists/riders would only cover them for £900 over 30 days in the case of temporary injury or £450 over 15 days in the case of severe sickness or injury.

Given the risks of being on the road in the busy cities that UberEats operates within, additional coverage may also be desired. A 30-year-old non-smoker could expect to pay around £35 per year for protection, and policies typically cover you for 55-70% of pre-tax earnings for a duration of 6 months to 1 year.

How much will it cost me to get insured to deliver for UberEats?

The cost of getting insured depends on which route you go down: an all-in, delivery driver policy (an annual policy that covers all driving) or a PAYG/top-up policy (that covers only the delivery driving and is bought in addition to SD&P cover).

Annual delivery driver policies often start from between £1,900 and £2,300 per year for UberEats car insurance. This is quite a bit more than traditional SD&P coverage, and is designed to cover delivery drivers for the additional risks (longer mileage, unfamiliar roads) they expose themselves to while delivering food and goods.

Scooter estimates started from £995 per year for a TPO policy (going up to £1,350 for a comprehensive policy), but are much more expensive when compared to the value of the vehicle insured (a 2017 Honda PCX125, a popular choice for many food delivery riders) due to the higher levels of risk you have on the road as a delivery rider—a 2007 survey found that nearly 60% of courier riders had been involved in an accident in the 3 years prior, compared to just over 35% for non-courier scooter and motorcycle riders.

How can I save money on my Uber driver insurance?

Ways to save money on your UberEats insurance will be familiar to those who have previously insured their personal vehicle and looked for ways to save:

FAQ’s