IN10 conviction - social and reward car cover

karimali831

I was caught by police driving my car delivering to a customer working for uber eats. Despite having fully comprehensive insurance I was told I wasn't allowed to use my vehicle for the purpose of the journey. Food courier falls under the "hire and reward" cover on an insurance policy. After checks they told me I am not covered for this and not knowing this myself I had my vehicle seized to the police pound. I was charged £170 for the release of my vehicle and all documents I had to begin with was enough anyway to release the vehicle - why they seized it despite having all the legal documents I do not understand. 2 days later, I received a letter of a condition offer of a fixed penalty of £300 and 6 points on my license for the offence "Use a motor vehicle on a road / public place without third party insurance Contrary to section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988". To clarify, at the time of the alleged offence I had fully comprehensive insurance which is beyond the cover of third party insurance. It was mentioned that I might receive a letter for a penalty for using a vehicle that does not provide cover for the purpose of the journey - why is this being treated as if I didn't have insurance altogether? I acknowledged when I was stopped that I couldn't do deliveries and agreed I would cancel the delivery but it's one after the next with this. Considering the alleged offence isn't exactly true as it's worded, do I have a chance to contest this to court?

Thank you
Karim

Le_Kirk

This forum deals with parking tickets, you might try Pepipoo and see if they can help: -
http://forums.pepipoo.com/

RobM99

You weren't insured for the use of the car.  Hence seizure.

Scrapit

karimali831 said:

I was caught by police driving my car delivering to a customer working for uber eats. Despite having fully comprehensive insurance I was told I wasn't allowed to use my vehicle for the purpose of the journey. Food courier falls under the "hire and reward" cover on an insurance policy. After checks they told me I am not covered for this and not knowing this myself I had my vehicle seized to the police pound. I was charged £170 for the release of my vehicle and all documents I had to begin with was enough anyway to release the vehicle - why they seized it despite having all the legal documents I do not understand. 2 days later, I received a letter of a condition offer of a fixed penalty of £300 and 6 points on my license for the offence "Use a motor vehicle on a road / public place without third party insurance Contrary to section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988". To clarify, at the time of the alleged offence I had fully comprehensive insurance which is beyond the cover of third party insurance. It was mentioned that I might receive a letter for a penalty for using a vehicle that does not provide cover for the purpose of the journey - why is this being treated as if I didn't have insurance altogether? I acknowledged when I was stopped that I couldn't do deliveries and agreed I would cancel the delivery but it's one after the next with this. Considering the alleged offence isn't exactly true as it's worded, do I have a chance to contest this to court?

Thank you
Karim

You didn't have insurance. That's why they seized your car.
You do have insurance cover for driving around etc but you have nothing to cover what you was doing, effectively no insurance. 

fisherjim

Fully comprehensive is for personal use, not for hire and reward or business use, you were not insured for what you were doing.

I see Uber are living up to their bad shoddy name!

My wife is a community nurse and has to be insured for business use at her expense, why do you think you should be exempt?

bazzyb

karimali831 said:

After checks they told me I am not covered for this and not knowing this myself I had my vehicle seized to the police pound.

To be able to deliver for Uber Eats you have to provide proof of hire & reward insurance cover - they are very strict on this. 

How did you manage to provide such proof to Uber, and how can you claim to not know it was required when Uber insist on it?

As stated by previous posters, the wording isn’t incorrect at all - you had no valid insurance cover in place at the time. 

jag_run

This catches a lot of people out, particularly those trying to make a bit of extra money on the side. Same goes for courier work, collecting scrap metal etc. Also people trying to save a little bit of money by not including 'commuting' use too.

Unfortunately not much you can do about this one. That kind of use will have been specifically excluded under your policy, and the police have caught you doing that. Your only out normally would be contesting the fact you were doing what the Police said... but if you've got an Uber Eats meal on the passenger seat not really much chance of that happening I'm afraid. 

The_Slithy_Tove

jag_run said:

This catches a lot of people out, particularly those trying to make a bit of extra money on the side. Same goes for courier work, collecting scrap metal etc. Also people trying to save a little bit of money by not including 'commuting' use too.

There are always several cars parked outside the Domino's just up the road from me, now that they are doing delivery only, no collection (even if, as I do, you live just round the corner). I'd put money on most of those NOT being insured for the purposes of delivering pizzas.

Sea_Shell

We have a courier works in our area and he drives a Mini.    If you spot him at the start of his round, it's rammed to the rafters with parcels.

Heaven only knows if he's got the right insurance, but I'm sure he's probably come to the police's attention...as he's so obviously a courier.   So maybe he has!!!

jag_run

To be able to deliver for Uber Eats you have to provide proof of hire & reward insurance cover - they are very strict on this. 

How did you manage to provide such proof to Uber, and how can you claim to not know it was required when Uber insist on it?

We have several around our way who are shown on the app as coming via bicycle... but arrive by car.

I’m sure if Uber Eats looked at some of their bike riders average speeds they’d start their own Tour De France team!

RobM99

Out of interest - how much di££erence would it make?