Why Using Your Car to Deliver Pizza Can Create a Huge Insurance Liability

We've already reported to you how being a pizza delivery person happens to be one of the single most dangerous professions in America. We also brought you the action-packed and tear-jerking confessional of an average pizza deliveryman. Well, get ready to add yet another big con to the list of reasons not be one of the unsung gatekeepers to glorious pizzadom.

One Salt Lake City pizza deliveryman learned the hard way that just because you have auto insurance, doesn't mean that your auto insurance company will actually pay for damage to your car incurred when you used it for work.

Utah-based KUTV reports that Connor Rose-Johnson, a Papa John's Pizza deliveryman, slammed his mother's car into another vehicle while on the job. He ended up totaling the car in the process. "I thought, 'well, no big deal' because we've got coverage," stated Connor's mother, Susan. Pretty normal shit—but what comes after might just change how you feel the next time you decide to have a pizza delivered.

When Connor's mom called her insurance company, Geico, they told her that there was an exclusion in her policy for using the car to deliver food as part of a job. In other words, they weren't going to pay.

Mom then called Papa John's, Connor's employer, and the pizza chain said the onus was not on them. Instead, a Papa John's representative told her, employees are personally responsible for ensuring that they have adequate car insurance. And they should do so, the representative made clear, on their pizza delivery salaries.

Mom got pissed: "I said, ya know, you hang your employees out to dry. You put all the liability on the pizza driver. Are you kidding me?"

Apparently, state insurance laws support this result. Utah Insurance Commissioner Todd Kiser says it is the norm for insurance companies to exclude liabilities that are incurred when drivers are driving for work.

Utah does, however, require that employers have "third-party liability." But this only covers third party losses—in other words, it would pay to fix the car Connor hit. But not to fix Connor's car.

So all you pizza delivery people out there, listen up. Be sure to shop for an insurance policy that covers use of your personal car for commercial use. This rule actually applies to anyone who delivers stuff for work with their own car.

"There probably are a number of people who just are not aware that that exclusion exists," Kiser said.

Connor's mom is having none of it. She points out, "These are pizza drivers. Do you really think they understand that they're risking the value of their car every time the deliver a pizza?"

Unlikely. But now we do.