An Uber Eats driver who hit a parked car will not be covered after he was found to have misrepresented his vehicle’s use in a policy application made hours after the accident. 

The man lodged a claim with Auto & General for more than $16,000 of damage to the third party’s vehicle, and told the insurer’s investigator he did not take any photos of the damage because his phone had the Uber Eats app active at the time of the crash.

Auto & General said it was not required to cover the claim because the driver misrepresented the vehicle’s use as “private and/or commuting to work” when applying for the policy online.  

The insurer also cancelled the policy, saying it would not have offered insurance if it had been aware the vehicle was used for food delivery.  

It said its policy had wording to that effect, and the man was aware of the provision.  

“We will not insure a car if it is used for ... making deliveries or carrying other people’s goods for payment, whether as a contractor or otherwise (including couriers and food delivery such as pizza delivery or Uber Eats),” the policy stated.  

In a dispute ruling, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority says the insurer gave adequate warning of the exclusion.  

“While the complainant chose the vehicle’s use as ‘private and commuting’ when incepting the policy, he informed the investigator the vehicle was used for private and business purposes,” AFCA said. “He had been regularly using the vehicle for Uber delivery.

“The complainant therefore failed to take reasonable care to not make a misrepresentation when incepting the policy.”  

The complainant later said he used his wife’s vehicle for delivery purposes and was only collecting a takeout order when the accident happened. But AFCA is not convinced by the altered story.  

The authority also finds the incident happened on March 16 last year – a day earlier than the claimant had said and hours before he bought the policy with Auto & General.  

It says there was no active policy at the time of the accident.  

See the ruling here.