When a restaurant hires staff to deliver food in their own vehicles rather than a fleet vehicle, standard commercial auto insurance usually doesn’t extend to that car — it’s not owned by the business. That gap is exactly what hired and non-owned auto liability is designed to close.
What creates the exposure:
- An employee causes an accident while delivering food in their personal car, and the restaurant gets named in the resulting lawsuit.
- The employee’s personal auto policy may deny the claim outright, since many personal policies exclude commercial use like food delivery.
- Third-party delivery platforms typically carry their own insurance for their drivers, but that coverage doesn’t extend to a restaurant’s own in-house delivery staff.
- Liability exposure applies whether the restaurant reimburses mileage or not — the determining factor is that the driving was done on the restaurant’s behalf.
How Liberty structures your protection: Liberty adds hired and non-owned auto liability to a restaurant’s commercial package specifically for staff using personal vehicles, so a gap in the driver’s personal policy doesn’t become a gap in the restaurant’s coverage.