Does your car insurance cover a Deliveroo side hustle?
Most personal motor policies exclude courier and delivery use. A new telematics score flags the driving patterns that tend to give the game away.
Comprehensive car insurance does not silently cover Deliveroo, Just Eat or any other courier side hustle, and a new telematics score makes that harder to ignore.
ThingCo has launched a delivery route pattern product that, according to Insurance Edge, flags repeated trips to the same takeaway address and multiple short stops inside a longer journey. I Love Claims reports the same courier risk score: automated warnings go to the driver, and if the pattern continues insurers get a portal view before they contact the policyholder.
I think the dangerous myth is that personal comprehensive cover somehow expands for a few evening runs.
The questions worth asking before you use your own car for deliveries are blunt.
Does my schedule say social, domestic and pleasure only, or does it include commuting, or class one business use? Courier and delivery work is usually none of those. ThingCo’s Alex Brockman, its operations director, says students are a common recruitment target for side hustles, and driving a private car for courier work usually contravenes the policy, leaving the driver unprotected after an accident. Late-night driving also elevates the risk the insurer priced.
Will my insurer even know? Increasingly, yes, if a box or app is already on the car. The score is built for insurers that already collect telematics data. Warnings first, then a conversation.
What happens if I crash while undeclared? The practical answer is that the insurer can refuse the claim and treat the policy as void for that use. That is a much larger cost than declaring the right cover up front.
One practical tip. Before you accept a delivery shift, ring your insurer or check the schedule for business use, and if the answer is no, get a courier policy that names the platform, rather than hoping a private car policy will stretch.