Does your insurance cover you for "misfuelling"?

A moment’s absent mindedness at the petrol pump can be disastrous for both car and wallet, with recent research from BIBA (British Insurance Brokers’ Association) highlighting the fact that around a third of motor policies do not cover “misfuelling” incidents.

Around 150,000 of us fall into the misfuelling trap each year, with diesel drivers far more likely to succumb to the error due to the shape of the filler neck and nozzle. Only 5% of incidents relate to drivers putting diesel into their cars instead of petrol.

If you realise what you have done, on no account should you just drive away, hoping for the best. Not only could your repair costs rocket from around £300 for a fuel drain to as much as £6,000 for serious engine damage but you could also invalidate your insurance policy since you may then be deemed to have failed to take due care.

Instead, make sure that you notify the petrol station, breakdown service and your insurer straight away. If you are lucky your insurance company will treat the incident as accidental damage and pay for the repairs. However, many policies contain exclusions for misfuelling and third-party policies are unlikely to provide cover.

If it makes you feel any better you are not alone, with Wayne Rooney having incurred a bill of £6,000 after putting petrol in his wife Coleen’s Range Rover Sport V8. Even police drivers are not immune, with the Met having spent over a quarter of a million pounds since 2006 sorting out damage from the misfuelling of their cars.

The most likely times for the problem to occur are, perhaps predictably, Monday mornings and Friday evenings.