[Washington State]

I find it hilarious that the typical image, or icon, or logo of any delivery company involves the idea of someone on a scooter delivering (usually pizza) around the city.

Well, it turns out that there's actually no way to legitimately use your scooter for, for example, doordash, or Ubereats, due to insurance reasons.

Of course, if you call all the major insurance companies and ask them directly about some sort of "motorcycle commercial" policy for doordash, or a "Motorcycle policy add-on" for food delivery, you will get the same answer: "No, we don't do that". The real issue, however, is that you'll be pre-emptively blacklisted from these companies. They will refuse to write you any motorcycle policy after you inquire about doordash or food delivery policies.

If you call actual independent insurance brokers, they all say the same thing: "Huh, ok, wow, that's a really interesting one, let me call and get back to you". Then they'll either never get back to you, or call you back within the hour to tell you that all their contacts at the major insurance companies said there's no such thing. "They recommend you try with some other company and ask for a food delivery addendum to your policy". Yeah, I obviously can't do that because I don't want to get blacklisted from even more companies.

So, ultimately, the only way you can actually do the whole "haha cute it's a scooter delivering food haha just like italy hahaha" is get a personal motorcycle policy, LIE to them saying it won't be used for commercial activities, and then PRAY and HOPE to god that no one so much as hits you. Of course it's understood that YOU can't make a claim yourself on your insurance, but what's even worse is that you can't make a claim on the insurance of the guy that hits you and who is at-fault. His insurance will notify yours, and then your insurance will start sniffing and if there's even a HINT of a scent that you were delivering food (hot bag, app on the phone, etc), they'll drop you IMMEDIATELY and, of course, ban you from their company.

Some people talk about Doordash's "gap" policy that covers you from the moment you pick up the food to the moment you drop it off. Yes, but that ONLY works if your base insurance is cool with you driving commercially. If its not, these so-called "gap" policies don't apply.

So, my question is, is there really no way to do the whole delivery thing on a scooter here? You just have to skirt by on a personal policy and hope and pray to god that no one hits you? If someone does smack into you, and their car is fine, you should just attempt to extort for cash? But ultimately if that fails and they insist on making a claim on their insurance, you just leave? Hit and run is illegal, but with these tiny 50cc scooters it's very difficult to actually damage a vehicle with them.