New York City is stepping up safety for its food delivery workforce.
After more than 130 battery fires reported this year, the city is now mandating that delivery platforms provide workers with certified, safety-approved e-bikes.
On paper, it’s a bold measure, placing more responsibility on platforms to protect gig workers. But the industry awaits the real-world impact. How it will play out in practice, and who ultimately bears the cost when incidents occur, remains uncertain.
To unpack the implications for platforms, riders and the wider food delivery industry, Zag sits down with Brandon Schuh, Head of Specialty Insurance at US insurance broker Christensen Group, to explore whether NYC’s mandate will deliver meaningful safety improvements – or simply shift responsibility.
Zag Daily: What triggered this law?
Brandon: “New York City is known to have faced a chaotic e-bike boom after the pandemic. First and foremost, there were the lithium-ion battery fires that made the headlines in 2022 and 2023. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) then jumped in to mandate UL certification of batteries. That’s where this started. Now, New York City is saying that food delivery workers must use a certified e-bike to work in the sector. It’s not entirely clear what ‘certification’ means, but the UL 2849 and UL 2271 battery certifications are primary standards used across the city.”
Zag Daily: What specific problem is the city trying to solve with this mandate?
Brandon: “The primary goal is to cut down battery fires, especially when gig economy workers park their bikes inside apartment buildings when storing vehicles. NYC wants to reduce the import activity and purchase activity from providers that are not testing batteries. The UL process is expensive for every company putting vehicles out into the market. Testing a battery requires the whole bike to go through UL certification, and doing this for batches of vehicles can cost up to $50,000, depending on the number of vehicles. If a supplier is selling 10 different vehicle types, that’s an expensive endeavour. There’s been a lot of creative navigation to circumvent this cost and this new law attempts to combat that.”
Zag Daily: The bill has been passed but is it being enforced – and how practical is enforcement likely to be?
Brandon: “To date, the CPSC is not enforcing the new rule and it’s unclear when exactly it will be enforced. The city has the authority to do so but there’s no real process yet where we’re seeing authorities intercepting vessels or looking into shipyards to make sure e-bikes have been tested. As far as I can tell, it’s a grey area. Unless you’re caught by authorities with an uncertified bike that’s been bought from a direct-to-consumer company, then it’s unclear how the policing efforts for this will work.”
Zag Daily: From an insurance perspective, what are the implications of this law?
Brandon: “If it’s enforced, followed and policed effectively then it will have a positive effect. Battery fires are still a huge concern for insurance companies. If a delivery platform’s e-bike rider burns down somebody else’s building that’s a third-party risk. Insurance companies are currently sub-limiting or excluding this altogether.
“Three or four years ago, it was implied that a policy would cover battery fires but it wasn’t necessarily something that every single person was worried about. After 2023, with the hundreds of battery fires thought to be attributable to micromobility devices, it’s now on everybody’s radar. While not every single one of these fires can be directly attributed to the battery, it’s an easy target. So if the comfort level is there in policies, food delivery companies will benefit from coverage for battery fires and insurers might not feel the need to exclude this from policies.”
Zag Daily: How do insurance claims currently work when delivery riders are involved in incidents?
Brandon: “There are multiple parties involved with each claim but it can often be about who has the deepest pockets. There’s the platform, like Uber Eats and DoorDash, that aren’t necessarily supplying the equipment. Then there’s a secondary layer of commerce which is the providers supplying the bikes and devices. Currently, those parties don’t need to have direct contacts with one another. That’s changing a little bit now, especially with the insertion of Also into the mix which is selling Amazon thousands of e-quads specifically designed for their delivery drivers. But for most providers out there, there aren’t contracts with the delivery platforms. They’re simply facilitating and targeting the gig economy drivers directly. When it comes to making a claim, the first targets of litigation will be the platforms themselves and that’s why this new legislation is being burdened by them as the gatekeeper.”
Zag Daily: What does the law mean for delivery platforms? Will it change their responsibilities or expose them to new risks?
Brandon: “The law will specifically highlight the responsibility of the delivery platforms. The onus will be much more positioned on the food-delivery platforms which will require them to get granular in terms of the contracts that they’re signing. If a vehicle is not compliant, the responsibility is going to fall on the platform, whether that’s civil penalties or litigation.”
Zag Daily: And for riders themselves – how might this law affect their liability or insurance exposure?
Brandon: “They may be held liable too but nobody wants to call out the delivery riders themselves – it’s like a David versus Goliath situation. In reality, delivery riders are often the ones causing the accidents, perhaps by using inappropriate charging mechanisms. But they don’t have the deep pockets that an Uber Eats has. So if a rider plugs a bike into the wrong power outlet, the chances are that both the delivery rider and the platform will get caught in the claim. The rider will eventually get released because they’re just one person. So the burden ends up being the platform’s to bear. It was their failure to manage the process effectively. If there was some gross negligence, where the rider was drinking or not following the rules, they’ll be on their own. But overall, the rider doesn’t have the money so nobody’s going after them. Nine times out of 10, the DoorDash’s of the world will be dragged in.”
Zag Daily: Do you think the law will genuinely improve safety and operations in NYC’s food delivery sector?
Brandon: “The intention is good. But I feel from a regulatory and legislative perspective, it’s not so thoughtful at this point. I don’t think the dynamics will change a huge amount. Insurance requirements tied to the delivery rider, not just the platform, would have a stronger impact. For instance, food delivery riders who use motorcycles have their own insurance policy, similar to auto insurance, to protect them and cover third-party liability.”
Zag Daily: Could this law shift public perception of the city’s micromobility industry?
Brandon: “I don’t think it’s good PR. I think there’s an element of necessity around it. It’s still this ‘Us-versus-Them’ mentality. Recreational use has definitely soured the taste of micromobility in the eyes of the public. I was recently in downtown Minneapolis and an e-scooter rider buzzed past me, tried to make a turn too fast and did a head-over-heels flip. Those kinds of incidents make the industry look bad and that’s what people see.
“With delivery riders, there seems to be the consensus that the sector is more experienced and they know what they’re doing. But both the industry and lawmakers have to create more specific guardrails on the landscape as a whole. What would be great would be to see an association body – let’s call it the American Micromobility Association – created to manage the standardisation of these processes and set the tone for regulation instead of allowing lawmakers to set the agenda. Lawmakers are not micromobility practitioners. The industry is mature enough now – it needs to assemble.”
