In light of the pandemic, many restaurants have choose to start delivery. If your restaurant traditionally does not delivery please know that you may need to bind additional liability coverage for your delivery drivers.

Hired/Non-owned Auto Liability (H/NO) 
Any business who rents vehicles for business use (hired) or allows employees to drive their personal vehicles for business use (non-owned) must consider liability coverage for bodily injury or property damage the business could be held liable.  

If the employee is on the road for the benefit of the business, a driver’s personal automobile policy will exclude claims arising from commercial use of that vehicle -- and the injured party will likely look to the employer’s business policy for coverage. A business can properly protect themselves for this liability through hired/non-owned auto liability coverage attached to their general liability policy.   

Some important points to consider if you are delivering:

• Please check with your current agent to confirm your policy has hired/non-owned auto liability coverage for delivery.
• If you previously have not had delivery exposure as part of your restaurant operations, this should be disclosed to your insurance company – if you don’t, this is a big risk!
• If you are utilizing third-party delivery services (i.e. DoorDash, Uber Eats, GrubHub), it’s likely their contract gives the liability exposure to the restaurant. 
• Note that short-term H/NO auto policies (3 or 6 months) have become available in the marketplace.