Hungry Panda food delivery riders are required to have their own insurance, but the company does not check if the policies are valid, an inquiry has heard.

Hungry Panda's Human Resources Manager Tina Sun revealed the company employed 100 to 150 delivery riders a day in Sydney.

But a NSW Parliamentary Select Committee hearing investigating safety in the gig economy was told Hungry Panda paid just $3,000 a year in workers' compensation premiums.

Ms Sun said this covered the 25 employees in the Sydney office but not the delivery riders, who she said were employed not as workers but as "independent contractors".

"We require them to have their own insurance," she told the inquiry.

"We collect the certificates, but in practice we can not make sure every policy is valid."

"It seems you're getting a free ride from the system here," Greens MP David Shoebridge put to Ms Sun.

"I wouldn't agree with that," she replied.

One Hungry Panda delivery rider told the inquiry that he earned between $150-$200 for working a 12-hour day.

Jun Yang, a 51-year-old father-of-four from China, said he was paid $9 per delivery at the start of his contract but this was later cut to as low as $3 per delivery.

He said his employment was terminated when he and another delivery rider staged a protest against the rate cuts.

"When we went on strike, they just sent me a message and then my number was blocked," he told the inquiry, speaking through a Mandarin interpreter.

He said since then other riders were too worried to speak out.

Ms Sun disputed Mr Yang's version of events, saying he had been sacked because of complaints from customers.

She also said pay rates per delivery varied according to the distance travelled.

Last year, five delivery riders were killed on Australian roads in just two months.

Many more were injured in road accidents.

But Mr Yang and fellow Hungry Panda delivery rider Fang Sun told the inquiry that they were not provided with any training around road safety.

"They did not provide anything," Mr Sun said.

Greens MP David Shoebridge asked Ms Sun whether the company was aware of riders feeling "unsafe" as they rushed from job to job.

"I haven't heard a lot from that, only at the hearing this morning," Ms Sun replied.

She said that safety was Hungry Panda's "first priority".

She said every rider was given a road user's handbook during the "onboarding process" when they started working for the company.

But she later admitted the company had initially failed to report the death of one of its riders to the state's workplace health and safety regulator, SafeWork NSW, as required by law.

Forty-three year old Xioajun Chen, who was working for Hungry Panda to support his wife and two children in China, died in September last year after colliding with a bus in Sydney.

"Were you aware you had a legal obligation to report to SafeWork NSW at the time?" Chair of the Committee, Labor MP Daniel Mookhey asked Ms Sun.

"No," she replied.

The hearing was told the company had not paid any compensation to Mr Chen's family.

"Mr Chen already got compensation from Compulsory Third Party insurance, around $20,000, and of course we are not claiming that back, we see that as compensation," Ms Sun said.

She said Hungry Panda had paid for the family's expenses to travel from China following the accident and for the funeral costs.

She said talks about a possible compensation payout were continuing with Mr Chen's widow.

"We have done what we can to support the family, but I have to say there is no evidence we have breached any obligation," Ms Sun told the hearing.

Hungry Panda was established in the UK in 2016 and rapidly expanded around the world, setting up a Sydney branch in late 2019.

Ms Sun told the inquiry it catered to a "niche market" of exclusively Chinese speakers.