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Food delivery drivers struggling to make ends meet could see their jobs become even more difficult in Boston after new city rules went into effect last week.

The rules, chiefly adopted to address reports of dangerous driving, require major third-party delivery companies to secure a permit to operate in Boston and obtain liability insurance protecting their drivers, other motorists, and pedestrians in the event of an accident. The ordinance, approved last year, went into effect April 11.

But because the new rules focus heavily on financial protections, there could be unintended consequences for drivers, according to several urban traffic experts who study third-party delivery logistics. The ordinance doesn’t prevent companies from passing some of the insurance costs onto drivers, cutting into their earnings, researchers said.

“There are lots of different potential outcomes that could come from what might otherwise seem to be a pretty straightforward policy intervention,” said Jason Jackson, an urban planning professor at MIT whose work focuses on digital platform economies.

A spokesperson for Mayor Michelle Wu said large food delivery companies “have the resources to meet this requirement.”

Researchers said it’s also unclear if the insurance requirements will encourage drivers to navigate the streets more safely, or if the policies could lead them to take more risks, professors said.

“That would be a perverse outcome, given the objectives of the new ordinance,” Jackson said.

Last year, the City Council and Wu adopted the rules, saying they would provide much-needed oversight.

The ordinance says companies must obtain insurance policies for drivers that cover medical expenses or property damage beyond a certain threshold. In addition to cars and motorcycles, bicycles, e-bikes, and motorized scooters must be covered.

If a delivery driver lacks a personal vehicle insurance policy or is underinsured, the company’s liability insurance must also cover the courier in the event of an accident, according to the ordinance.

The coverage applies only when a driver is in “active status,” which the ordinance defines as the period beginning when they accept an order until it is completed.

City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who chairs the council’s committee on planning, development, and transportation, said companies such as Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash were previously operating in Boston without any conditions.

“Before this ordinance, we didn’t have leverage to say what requirements are necessary in order to serve the city of Boston,” Durkan said.

In recent years, many drivers have worked for the companies without licenses or insurance, Durkan said, pointing to police data. But no one was being held to account, often at the expense of drivers’ safety, she said.

“These drivers are being incentivized to drive faster, unsafely, and these are really dangerous jobs that aren’t sold as dangerous jobs,” Durkan said.

Drivers lack job protections and often complete deliveries as fast as they can to maximize their earnings, researchers said. If they don’t work fast enough, drivers can get bad reviews and risk getting terminated from the app, said Shauna Brail, an urban planning professor and director of the Institute for Management & Innovation at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“Delivery drivers are trying to work against the clock to deliver a prepared meal in the time that the app suggests, or perhaps even faster, because then they might get more orders,” said Brail, who researches how cities interact with digital platform economies.

The Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Boston’s union for ride-share and third-party delivery drivers also did not respond to a request for comment.

DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub are three of the biggest tech platforms now required to secure permits to operate in Boston.

So far, only Grubhub has a permit, Durkan said.

Durkan said she is in conversations with Uber and DoorDash about the new requirements.

The new rules also apply to other third-party delivery companies that facilitate more than 1 million orders per year, according to the ordinance.

Uber and DoorDash are likely negotiating insurance details behind the scenes and possibly trying to find loopholes in the ordinance, Jackson said.

“What don’t they like about the new rules? Why are they pushing back? I interpret that as some degree of resistance,” Jackson said.

Uber, which is headquartered in San Francisco, said on Tuesday that it is working to sync its operations with the new regulations.

“By working hand-in-hand with city officials, we are refining our approach to keep Boston moving forward by blending innovation with a focus on safety so that every order arrives reliably and every street remains a community,” spokesperson Katie Franger said in a statement.

DoorDash, which is also headquartered in San Francisco, said it recently submitted its permit application.

Delivery companies that operate without a city permit could face fines of “$300 per day per restaurant” and/or “$300 per order,” the ordinance states.

Wu has described the ordinance, called “Road Safety and Accountability for Delivery Providers,” as a response to increasing reports about dangerous delivery driving, including people on mopeds and scooters running red lights or driving on sidewalks and the wrong way down streets.

Residents over the previous year have made more than 100 calls reporting instances of unsafe driving by couriers, the Globe reported in February.

Trilce Encarnación, a business professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who studies third-party delivery driver logistics, said that over time, the insurance policies could lead drivers to operate more safely.

“There might be some minimal recalibration,” Encarnación said. “Engaging in unsafe behaviors might have downstream effects if the companies connect that to bad performance on the job.”

But some couriers could drive more aggressively if they feel insulated from repair bills stemming from an accident, Jackson said.

“If they’re insured, maybe they’ll take more risks,” he said.

Brail said that more drivers could feel pressure to drive faster and disobey traffic regulations if the companies lower their pay to offset higher insurance costs.

“If their incomes go down, they’ll be further penalized for going more slowly,” Brail said.

Durkan, as well as Encarnación, said the insurance requirements represent the most rigorous safety regulations among big US cities in an era when government policies have lagged behind the expanding tech platforms and their workforce.

Whereas other cities, such as New York and Seattle, have focused on regulating third-party food delivery wage minimums, Boston’s new rules focus on insurance coverage, Encarnación said.

“The novelty of this is that Boston is framing this as a transportation safety issue,” said Encarnación, adding that she is “impressed” by the ordinance.

Still, it’s unclear how city officials will ensure compliance with the permit requirements, Brail said, pointing out that similar city ordinances regulating short-term rentals on platforms like Airbnb suffer from lax enforcement.

Immigrants who work as delivery drivers could also fear being caught up in enforcement, she said.

“One of the unintended impacts could be a reduced number of people willing to work in this sector, if they feel that their ability to remain in the US is at risk,” Brail said.

Learning how the companies operate is Durkan’s primary motivation, she said.

As part of the new requirements, the companies must share data on individual drivers, and their deliveries, with city officials. The transportation department plans to analyze what types of vehicles are used, and how far they travel, to determine how to make streets less congested, the ordinance states.

“I didn’t know how we could fully measure the impact without getting data,” she said. “That’s the first order of business.”