A Mercedes owner will not be covered for a kangaroo collision after his insurance was cancelled over a model mix-up during the application process.

The claimant’s car – assessed as a total loss after the crash last year – was insured for $138,425, but an Allianz assessor discovered it was a Mercedes S400H and not the S400L listed on the policy.

The insurer said it would not cover S400H variants because they were “grey imports” – vehicles that enter Australia through channels outside the manufacturer’s official distribution system.  

It added the insured’s selection of the wrong model during the cover purchase process was a breach of policy terms and warranted cancellation.

Allianz said the S400H and S400L were “two totally different vehicles”, noting variations in components, dimensions and engine output.    

The owner said the error was a “genuine misunderstanding” and he thought the S400L designation included his model.

He said the two models were often listed together on car sale platforms.

The policyholder also argued the insurer should have identified the mistake earlier, because he had provided the vehicle’s identification number, and it should have told him grey imports were excluded.

In a dispute decision, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority says the onus is on the policyholder to provide correct information.  

“I do not accept that the insurer was obliged to specify as part of the application process that it would not insure grey imports,” an AFCA ombudsman said.

“It was enough that it only gave two vehicle types to choose from, neither of which were S400H.”

The authority says the policy’s special product disclosure statement made clear references to the consequences of providing incorrect answers, including policy cancellation, and it has shown its underwriting guidelines would class the S400H as an uninsurable risk.

See the ruling here.