Skip to main content

Caviar will now cover medical bills for delivery drivers injured on the job

One of the many issues with with the “gig economy” is that these temporary workers don’t receive the benefits of real employees, depressing their earnings and putting them in a difficult position when it comes to things to health insurance. Today, the food delivery service Caviar is addressing at least one of those fronts, by offering accident insurance to all drivers, so long as they’re actively picking up or delivering an order. All drivers are covered, and there’s no cost to be included.

Uber, Lyft, and other part-time driving platforms offer a degree of insurance, but their insurance is generally meant to protect the driver’s car, or some other party in an accident — not the working driver. Caviar’s insurance stands out by offering a degree of protection to drivers should they be injured. That includes medical expenses, as well as disability pay of 50 percent of a driver’s average weekly earnings. The insurance also offers $100,000 to a driver’s family should they die in an accident on the job.

These benefits don’t address all issues an injured driver might encounter. Disability pay is an important perk, but because Caviar is part-time work — and something drivers might do between other part-time driving work — half of a driver’s average weekly pay likely won’t be anywhere near enough to live off of. But it’s at least a start, and it’s something that other gig employment companies should be encouraged to follow, if not improve upon.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2Aamp94

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Magic Leap is shipping across (most of) the US

As Magic Leap holds the first developer conference for its Magic Leap One mixed reality headset, that headset has started shipping across the contiguous United States, instead of in a set of select markets. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition costs $2,295, just like before, but there’s now an installment plan that starts at $96 per month. All orders are supposed to arrive within 60 days. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition went on sale in early August, and while Magic Leap has touted it as a fully functional device, it’s basically meant for people who want to design apps, games, or art for mixed reality. We were ambivalent toward the hardware, which we found limited, and we noted that Magic Leap hadn’t shown off a lot of material that showcased its potential. The company’s developer conference keynote has revealed several new projects. Among other things, Spider-Man studio Insomniac Games is building an experience that will let you grow a holographic creature on your tabletop, and...

The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down

Less than a month after Mayfield Robotics said it was stopping production on its Kuri home robot, the company announced today on its blog that the company will be shutting down. Mayfield Robotics launched in 2015 as part of Bosch’s Startup Platform, but struggled to integrate with and find a business fit within Bosch. Since the cancellation of its Kuri robot, Mayfield Robotics had been looking for external partners for long-term technology development, but was unable to find investment to support its future. The company will cease all operations by October 31st. We first met Kuri at CES 2017, and it wasn’t yet able to showcase all the features it was promised to have in the future. The robot was supposed to have smart assistant functionalities like an Amazon Echo, but with a much cuter face and movable body. Promo videos showed it working as a moving home security camera that was controllable through the Kuri app, but in the demonstration we saw, it only had as much functionality a...

Amazon’s plans for a New York office are under new scrutiny

A month ago, when Amazon announced that it would build regional offices in New York and Virginia at great expense to the taxpayers there, I wrote that it had misunderstood the moment : Perhaps the furor over Amazon’s regional offices will blow over. But it’s hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public’s appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies, and underestimating the public’s ability to raise hell on- and offline. Amazon may yet feel that pain, in the long run. Today, Amazon met the room: 150 protesters who showed up to the first New York City Council hearing about the plan. According to reports from the scene, demonstrators’ concerns start with the $3 billion in incentives that New York plans to give Amazon in exchange for locating there — and, it says, creating 25,000 jobs. Here’s Leticia Miranda in BuzzFeed : ”You’re worth a trillion dollars,” New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the ...