Moms are often very worried about what their teenagers do after school. Are they being productive and staying safe? Getting a part-time job or working on obtaining a source of income in other ways is always a great idea as long as it doesn’t create too much stress or take away from homework and school projects.
Adults nowadays often think back on their childhood jobs such as delivering the newspaper or boxing groceries at the store. The job that has endured through the years as one of the most popular for teens is being a food delivery driver.
Pizza used to be the main delivery driver job in the past, but Uber Eats and other fast food delivery services have opened up an entirely new line of jobs in the industry. What does it take for a teenager to be successful as a delivery driver?
We’ll talk about some of the essentials, including getting pizza delivery insurance, so you can know whether your teen has what it takes to be a delivery driver.
Delivery Jobs Teach Good Work Ethic
All jobs that teens apply for can teach valuable life skills like work ethic, responsibility, and teamwork. Teens often have a hard time figuring out how to work with other people, compromise when there is an issue, and figure out how to listen to an employer and follow their directions.
Delivery driving is great for a young person because it teaches all of these concepts, and it helps them to work on a vital life skill: driving. Everyone is going to drive at some point in their life. Getting a driver’s license is one of the most important parts of being a teenager.
When you take a delivery driver job, you are working on your ability to drive from a young age and getting lots of practice and experience. This will help you in other areas of your life down the road. You will be forced to drive safely and follow the rules of the road.
Delivery service companies and restaurants don’t want their employees getting into accidents because they are irresponsible behind the wheel. Being a delivery driver is important for young teens because it forces them to think about driving beyond just getting them from point A to B.
Teen delivery drivers need to be prompt and they need to have good customer service skills when they get to the customer’s house. The driver is representing their company rather than just themselves.
Teens Can Start Saving Money
Parents need to let their teens know that it’s more important than ever for young people to start learning the value of money and how to maximize savings for their futures. College is more expensive than it was in the past. The job market is still recovering from the pandemic. Affordable housing is an issue that is affecting young people dramatically.
If you get a delivery driver job as a teenager, you can start saving money for your future post-high school. Put the money in a savings account so that you don’t spend all of it on nonessentials like entertainment, parties, etc.
This doesn’t mean that teens can’t spend some of their hard-earned money on things they enjoy. Earning your own paycheck teaches you to decide what is important to buy and what can wait for later.
When parents provide money for their kids on a whim to buy whatever makes them happy, there is a risk of the teen not learning how to weigh what is actually needed in life. Delivery driving is a lot of work, and it will make your teen understand that money represents the hours of hard labor you put in each day.
Delivery Driving Isn’t Necessarily in Your Future
A negative to delivery driving is that it might not be very applicable to your child’s future career aspirations. Not many teens dream of being a delivery driver for their entire life, and it’s not a job that shows their future employers in fields like science, engineering, medicine, etc. that they are capable of doing those jobs.
If you want your teen to work, it might be better to have them pursue a part-time job that is more related to their future. For example, if your child wants to be a teacher, see if they can apply to be a camp counselor or a peer tutor at school. If they want to be an electrical engineer, perhaps they can apply for an internship at Boeing or Amazon.
Delivery driving is a great part-time job for teens if they are interested in the food service industry or anything related to customer service. If they want to be a manager at a retail store or an entrepreneur, it teaches them how to interact with customers and do the little things it takes for a business to succeed.
You Need Commercial Auto Insurance
Another downside to being a delivery driver is that you are going to need a commercial auto insurance policy to protect your car in case of an accident. Personal auto insurance policies typically don’t cover you when you are driving for your job. Most restaurants and food service jobs are not going to buy a commercial driver policy for you.
When it comes to teens, they often don’t have the money to pay for their personal auto insurance, much less a second policy to protect them at work. This means parents will need to decide if they have enough money to purchase this extra insurance.
It’s also well known that teen driver insurance policies are more expensive, but they are very important for keeping your young driver safe. To help overcome some of these expenses, parents and teens should look for delivery driver jobs that have their employees drive company cars. This way the employer has to pay for the commercial insurance.
You can see there are several pros and cons to becoming a delivery driver as a teen. Parents who are wondering what their teen should do for work can consider this a good job if their teen is safe and smart behind the wheel. The job will teach them several things about responsibility and communication.
Shawn Laib writes and researches for the insurance comparison site, ExpertInsuranceReviews.com. He wants to help parents understand the risks and rewards of letting their teens be delivery drivers.
