The Grubhub app may be an easy way to get food delivered from your favorite restaurant, but Contact Denver7 is exposing a growing concern about Grubhub drivers not being covered by insurance when it matters most.
The damage to her company's box truck is the least of Susan Mullica's worries after a crash in Denver last month.
"My driver was hurt. They both got carted away in ambulances," she said. "My truck is big, and he was still hurt. What if that would have been my child? What if it would have been your mother, your father? They probably would have been dead."
Mullica said that her driver and the other driver involved will be OK, but letters show the other driver's insurance denied coverage because at the time, he was delivering for Grubhub, a multi-billion dollar food delivery service that does not provide insurance for its drivers.
"I'm disgusted," said Mullica, who is still waiting to find out how much repairs will cost and what insurance will pay. "We could be looking at $25-30,000 damage on this truck."
Colorado law requires rideshare companies, such as Uber and Lyft, to insure drivers who carry passengers. Food, however, falls outside of that law.
"GrubHub is an outlier, really, when it comes to how you're covered as a driver," said Carole Walker with the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association. "State lawmakers have never really addressed people driving around food and delivering it, but there is the understanding that it's not going to be covered by private insurance. They're going to have to buy separate insurance for it."
Heather Noel is a former Grubhub driver who learned she needed separate insurance after a crash in Fort Collins two years ago.
"I didn't know I needed the additional coverage. I had submitted my insurance to them, and I have the email saying I was good to continue driving for them. So even though they say, you know, you're good, you're not," said Noel, who was almost forced into bankruptcy by the costs. "Instead of putting myself in a better situation, I put myself in the worse situation financially, which was very frustrating."
To give some context, other food delivery services, such as Doordash and Instacart, do offer insurance protection for drivers when they are working on their apps.
In a statement to Contact Denver7, Grubhub wrote, “Grubhub requires delivery partners who use a car for deliveries to carry insurance, and we make clear during our onboarding process the type of insurance they need to carry. The safety of our delivery partners is always a top priority."
But when asked if Grubhub verifies proper coverage, the company did not respond.
"I think that's baloney," said Mullica. "I think they should, and they should be liable. Because, you know what? You're hiring these people. I mean, are you going to hire somebody without a driver's license? State lawmakers need to do something, too. If we're going to have these third-party delivery services, they need to be monitored."
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