Business cover car insurance

joaries

Hi Everyone!

I work for a small local charity. We provide support and advocacy to families. As part of this service, our support workers are expected to hold a clean driving licence in order to transport the individuals they support to appointments and meetings etc.

We ask support workers to provide evidence of their business insurance cover but have recently experienced some discrepancies in different people's cover which I would like to ask for your help with!

Some support workers have telephoned their insurance provider and simply added business use to their cover schedule with no additional cost, some support workers have been charged a one off fee such, e.g. £25.00 to add business cover, whilst others have been advised that their monthly premiums will increase by as much as £75.00 per month just to be able to take service users to appointments etc under business cover. Our organisation cannot afford to pay people's extra cover charges when it is as much as this last example.

Please can anyone tell me if there is a better, less costly, standardised way which we can arrange for all of our employees to be properly insured to transport service users as part of their roles?

Thanks so much for your help!
Best wishes
Jo

Quentin

As you have found, different insurers view business use differently.

Many make little or no charge for having business use.

MAybe advise your staff this, and have a maximum allowance you will pay towards the cost - an admin fee can be expected (£20 upwards) if people have to make changes to their cover mid term.

System

http://www.abi.org.uk/information/consumers/general/volunteer_driving_.aspx might be a useful reference

InsideInsurance

I suspect you are running into issues of different insurers taking a different approach on carrying passengers as part of the "business".

Class 1 business normally doesnt attract any additional premium over SDPC but as you are making the change mid term there may be an administration fee to pay for the amendment.

If they consider your vehicle is now being used for hire or reward because of having passengers then the loading is going to be massively higher. Ultimately it is the insurers choice but pleading it is voluntary work, unpaid and for a registered charity then they may get some goodwill

thenudeone

InsideInsurance wrote: »

pleading it is voluntary work, unpaid and for a registered charity then they may get some goodwill

If it was voluntary work, most insurers have agreed that as long as the driver was only being reimbursed at HMRC mileage allowance rates, they would be covered as part of standard cover,
http://www.abi.org.uk/information/consumers/general/volunteer_driving_.aspx
although that might not apply if passengers are being carried for "hire or reward".

However, the OP states that they "work for a small local charity" so it's not voluntary, and so each driver would need to check their insurer's requirements themselves.