Business insurance am I covered for transporting colleagues to training?

Jaxt

Can someone advise me please as I need advice. I am required to share costs in transporting to training by car sharing and then one person is paid the pittance of 17 pence per mile for the full car. I work for a local authority in Yorkshire. we are required to have business insurance for claiming this.The problem is that as a part time worker my work and pay does not start till say 9 the training course may be 9.15 but we may on the road from 8.15 or earlier. There may be other people in the car who are on pay from 8.30 but our authority deems it fair to discriminate against part time workers although HR say they don't as no one gets travelling time to a training course its just tough for part time workers thats their time of work but the thing that worries me most is that we may be driving with no insurance as the business part doesn't kick in as officially we are not at work when travelling. This is quite worrying when you have possibly 5 people in a car who may not be covered by this grey area in the insurance, and the fact we are being paid to transport these people although meagerley.If it were just myself travelling it may be different but its the fact in non working/business hours I am expected to transport colleagues. Does anyone have insurance knowledge to say what is what?

huckster

Phone your Insurers. They might not charge you anything to upgrade the cover or if they do, I think it would be reasonable to expect your employer to reimburse you. At 17p a mile, that is not enough. I thought the rate was supposed to be 40p a mile.

What if you did not have a car and had to use other transport. Your employer would pay those costs.

If you don't want to do it, then tell your employer that your car has a fault, so you can't use it. Then find out what the alternative is. Will they provide a hire car, that will have the correct Insurance ?

Jaxt

I actually have business on my insurance but its the fact of being out of working ours that is my concern as how can business insurance apply to your car when out of your working hours i.e. the travelling times as you are not in employment at this time and would hate to find out the hard way when an accident has happened and the police are going through everything where we are travelling etc whos in the car etc... I have heard online on a forum about this happening to a policeman who went to pick up lunch from a shop in his working time and had an accident and ended up getting 6 points due to using his car in working hours and for a work related trip and no business insurance.

huckster

But you are travelling for work purposes, so it does not matter that it is not within the contracted hours.

If your argument was valid, not many would be covered. Most people have to travel to work related events outside of the normal hours and do not get paid for the travelling hours. If the travelling time is more than the normal commute, it is up to you to discuss this with your line manager. They may allow you hours in-lieu (time off) for this.

vax2002

Insurance for business purposes may not cover you for use in connection with an employers business.
Only your insurance company can clarify this situation.
However no way on earth would I taxi a car full round for 17p a mile, I would drive to the place of work at the start of the working day and tell them to book a taxi.
Sounds like you are subsidising someone's poor business plan.

Quentin

If you are travelling on your employer's business, then your business cover you have in place will be fine, whatever time the journey is undertaken.

magpiecottage

vax2002 wrote: »

However no way on earth would I taxi a car full round for 17p a mile

Me neither.

Sounds like you are subsidising someone's poor business plan.

This may not actually be the local authority's agreed standard rate. If you live in its area it might be worth taking up with your local councillor.

InsideInsurance

That is the company car rate, if it's a private car you can claim 45p per mile. If your employers don't give you all of it you can get the rest from HMRC.

Everywhere I've worked will pay an additional 5p per mike per colleague you take and given that it was paid tax free I assume it's a legal tax break nit a company specific thing but you'd need to check.

Check with your insurers to be sure but if you have class 1,2 or 3 business use you should be fine as long as your paid nothing more than the HMRC allowances. If they pay more it's then effectively a taxi which will require a different policy.

BoGoF

InsideInsurance wrote: »

That is the company car rate, if it's a private car you can claim 45p per mile. If your employers don't give you all of it you can get the rest from HMRC.

Not quite, you can claim tax relief on the difference which still leaves you way short of 45 ppm

vaio

Other LAs might be different (but not by much I suspect) but ours has two grades......

"casual car users" get the 40p per mile figure, "essential car users" get a hefty annual lump sum and a smaller amount per mile

Jaxt

Thanks for all your replies, think I will just say no more business insurance on our car to my emplyoyer and let them sort out our transport .