Hit by a Delivery Driver in California: Whose Insurance Pays

A car with a hot bag on the passenger seat backed into you, or a branded van came out of a driveway without looking. You have a name, maybe a plate, and an app on your phone that says your groceries are five minutes away.

Which insurance pays depends on something you cannot see from the curb: whether the driver was an employee of the company whose name is on the vehicle, or an independent contractor tapping a request on an app. California treats those two very differently, and delivery drivers are not covered by the rideshare rules most people have heard about.

First question: who did that driver actually work for

Delivery here splits into three arrangements, each pointing at a different pot of money.

• Gig platform couriers. DoorDash, Instacart, Uber Eats, Amazon Flex. The driver uses their own car and accepts jobs through an app.
• Employees of a delivery contractor. The vehicle carries a national brand, but the driver is employed by a local company that contracts with that brand.
• Direct employees driving company vehicles. A traditional parcel carrier, a furniture store, a restaurant with its own driver.

The driver rarely explains which one they are, and the adjuster will not volunteer it. Get the company name on the vehicle, the name on the license, and the plate. Those three often do not match.

Gig couriers: Proposition 22 put a $1,000,000 policy behind them, with a condition

Proposition 22 wrote a chapter into the Business and Professions Code covering app-based drivers. Section 7451 makes such a driver an independent contractor rather than an employee as long as the company leaves four things alone: when the driver works, whether the driver accepts any given request, whether the driver works for competing platforms, and whether the driver holds another job.

That is why suing the platform as the driver's employer is difficult. But the same chapter added insurance the public can reach.

Section 7455(f)(1) says that "for the benefit of the public," a delivery network company must maintain automobile liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence to compensate third parties for injuries or losses proximately caused by an app-based driver's operation of a car during engaged time.

Read the end of that sentence carefully. The requirement applies "in instances where the automobile is not otherwise covered by a policy that complies with subdivision (b) of Section 11580.1 of the Insurance Code." That million dollars is a backstop, not a first-in-line policy.

That is a real difference from rideshare. For Uber and Lyft, Public Utilities Code § 5433(d) says coverage "shall not be dependent on a personal automobile insurance policy first denying a claim," and no personal policy is required to deny first. No comparable sentence appears in the Proposition 22 provision, so expect a delivery platform to start by pointing at the driver's own policy. Our post on which policy pays in an Uber or Lyft crash covers the rideshare side, and those rules do not carry over.

So what does the driver's own policy say? The California Department of Insurance has put the general position bluntly: personal automobile policies do not typically provide coverage for vehicles used for commercial purposes, like commercial delivery service. A personal policy that excludes delivery work is not "a policy that complies with subdivision (b)" for this trip. That argument is worth making rather than accepting a denial.

Even where a personal policy does respond, the numbers are small. Insurance Code § 11580.1(b) pegs required limits to Vehicle Code § 16056(a): for policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2025, $30,000 for injury to one person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 for property damage. An ambulance ride and an MRI can eat most of the first number.

The gap period nobody mentions

The $1,000,000 attaches only during engaged time, and § 7463 defines that narrowly: from when the driver accepts a delivery request until the driver completes it. It excludes time after a customer cancellation or after the driver abandons the request.

That leaves a hole. A courier logged in and circling a neighborhood waiting for the next order has not accepted anything yet, and nothing requires the platform to carry the $1,000,000 for that moment. Whether an accepted order was running at the instant of impact becomes the most valuable fact in the case, and only the company has the log that proves it.

If the driver was an employee, aim at the employer

When the driver was someone's employee rather than a gig contractor, the analysis changes in your favor. An employer is responsible for the negligence of an employee acting within the scope of employment.

CACI No. 3720 gives jurors the test. Conduct falls within the scope of employment if either it is reasonably related to the kinds of tasks the employee was employed to perform, or it is reasonably foreseeable in light of the employer's business or the employee's job responsibilities. A driver on the clock, running a route in the company's vehicle, sits near the center of that definition.

Employers who run fleets carry commercial auto policies, and those limits are not in the $30,000 range. The fight is usually about whether the driver was on a genuine work errand or off on a personal detour, not about whether the employer can be reached at all.

When the company owns the van

One route does not depend on employment. Vehicle Code § 17150 makes every owner of a motor vehicle liable for death or injury resulting from a negligent act in the operation of that vehicle by someone using it with permission. Do not overestimate it: § 17151(a) caps that owner liability at $15,000 for injury to one person, $30,000 where more than one person is hurt, and $5,000 for property damage. It is a floor worth identifying, not a substitute for the real policy.

The evidence that disappears is digital

In an ordinary crash the evidence is skid marks and a police report. Here it is a timestamp in a database you cannot see.

• Screenshot your own order if you were the customer: order time, courier name, status, and the live map.
• Photograph any decal, DOT number, or fleet number on the door or rear panel. Fleet numbers identify the contractor when the brand on the side does not.
• Ask the driver at the scene whether they were on a delivery, and write down the answer and the time.
• Get the police report and check that it lists the driver's employer and the registered owner, which is often a leasing company.
• Send a written preservation request early for app records, GPS and telematics data, and dashcam footage. Commercial video retention is often measured in weeks.

When the claims representative calls, the questions about where you were looking and how fast you were going serve the same purpose they do in any other claim. The recorded statement traps are identical.

What this means in California

• Two years. Under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, a personal injury claim generally must be filed within two years of the injury.
• Six months if a public entity is involved. A municipal or agency vehicle, or a dangerous condition in the roadway, generally triggers a government claim due within six months. See our post on the six-month government claim deadline.
• Shared fault reduces, it does not bar. California follows pure comparative negligence, so a percentage assigned to you lowers your recovery rather than ending the claim.
• More than one defendant is normal here. The driver, the vehicle's owner, the contractor that employed the driver, and the platform can all be separate parties with separate insurers.

Practical next steps

Get medical care and keep the appointments, because a gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster reaches for regardless of who hit you. Today, not next week, write down the vehicle, the branding, and what the driver said about being on a delivery. Request the police report and confirm it names the registered owner. If you were the customer, save the order record before it scrolls out of your app history. Do not accept a quick offer while the question of which policy applies is still open. If you want someone to work out which insurer is on the hook, a consultation with our firm is free and there is no fee unless there is a recovery.