A Fair Work Commission (FWC) order taking effect August 17 places a mandatory personal accident (PA) insurance obligation on every delivery platform operating in Australia – with no prescribed benefit level, no defined coverage threshold, and an enforcement mechanism already in place. For insurance brokers, that combination makes this order an immediate compliance question for platform clients, not a future regulatory trend to monitor.
Delivery workers must take out their own compulsory third-party insurance on their vehicles at their own expense. Platforms must cover the cost of offering all workers a “reasonable minimum level” of personal accident cover, according to Reuters. Experts have previously pointed out this language is open to interpretation. No policy structure, benefit level, or waiting period has been specified by the FWC. Workers can bring disputes to the FWC covering failure to provide required insurance, which creates enforceable obligations around a standard that has not yet been defined.
Chubb Insurance Australia’s A&H division has described itself as a leading provider of shared and gig economy insurance programs in Australia, with dedicated underwriting resources locally and regionally and a claims team trained and experienced in handling shared/gig economy claims. Chubb’s group personal accident and sickness product, with a product disclosure statement published in March 2025, defines “Employee” to include “consultants, contractors, sub-contractors, and/or self-employed persons undertaking work on the Policyholder’s behalf.”
That definition is significant for brokers. A platform operator placing a group personal accident policy under that structure would need to establish that its delivery workers are undertaking work “on the policyholder’s behalf” – a characterisation that sits in tension with the independent contractor classification the FWC order deliberately preserves. Whether standard group PA policy structures, as currently written, satisfy the FWC’s obligation without amendment or endorsement is a question brokers will need to put to underwriters before August 17.
The order is the first of its kind and sets a benchmark for separate applications currently under way covering rideshare and parcel delivery workers, according to researchers from the University of Western Australia Business School and the University of Sydney. The FWC is concurrently hearing last-mile delivery and road transport contractor cases under MS2024/1 and MS2024/2, with hearings running through August 2026.
The Australian Industry Group has submitted that insurance requirements in the last-mile orders cannot be included because they concern work health and safety (WHS) matters otherwise comprehensively dealt with by Commonwealth, state, or territory law. If that argument succeeds, the FWC’s authority to mandate insurance in gig worker standards orders would be curtailed. If it fails, mandatory platform-funded personal accident cover extends to each new sector as its order is made.
The FWC’s personal accident mandate operates alongside a broader, unresolved workers’ compensation question. In October 2025, Safe Work Australia published a national policy approach to workers’ compensation and the gig economy, endorsed by WHS ministers from New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, the ACT, and the Commonwealth. The approach establishes that workers’ compensation coverage should be considered for gig workers, and that digital labour platforms would be the most appropriate party to meet workers’ compensation employer obligations – including premium payments and rehabilitation and return-to-work obligations.
Generally, gig workers are not covered by workers’ compensation insurance in Australia, Safe Work Australia states in its current guidance. The FWC’s personal accident obligation partially addresses that gap for engaged time – but it does not replicate the breadth of workers’ compensation, and the Safe Work Australia framework remains policy rather than binding scheme-level law. Platform clients of brokers may face further insurance obligations as state schemes act on those principles.
Safe Work Australia has noted the gig economy is a growing part of Australia’s workforce, with over 100 platforms currently operating within the country. The on-demand delivery order covers approximately 250,000 workers. At the Insurance Council of Australia’s (ICA) annual conference in October 2025, ICA chair Steve Johnston described product innovation as a sector-wide obligation. “It’s time for insurance to modernise, for products to be designed to meet the needs of customers in areas where traditional products simply can’t respond. We need to innovate at pace," Johnston said.
That statement now has a specific test case. A group personal accident product that responds to a platform’s regulatory compliance obligation – with cover triggered at the point a worker accepts a delivery, priced by engaged time rather than headcount, and structured to satisfy an undefined but enforceable FWC threshold – does not yet have a standardised market form in Australia. GlobalData estimates Australia’s personal accident and health insurance industry will grow at a CAGR of 4.6% between 2026 and 2030, with direct written premiums rising from $35.7 billion to $42.8 billion. Whether the gig worker obligation contributes meaningfully to that trajectory depends on how the market responds and how quickly the FWC defines what compliance requires.
TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said gig workers “will be entitled to an absolute world-leading set of standards that we will build on over time.” The FWC’s own framing is more precise: the order is expressly interim, pending the outcome of the last-mile cases. Brokers should treat it that way.
