Does standard SD&P+C cover for driving to training course

mmcg

Hi all


just a quick question, I have to drive about 300 miles to a training course next week, I only have Social, domestic,pleasure and commuting to 1 place of business cover. I phoned up hastings about this and the girl seemed very unsure as to whether I would be covered, she eventually came back and said that since this is a one off journey (i.e. not regularly travelling to a 2nd place of work) I would be covered. Since she seemed unsure tho I thought I would double check on here to see if anybody thinks this sounds right?


Thank you

Spicy_McHaggis

My understanding is home to course is commuting.
Home to usual place of work and then onto course is business use.

mmcg

Thanks for the reply, I would be driving straight to course and back so hopefully this means im covered then.

InsideInsurance

This is only commuting if the training course is at your usual place of work. If it is at a different location to normal then technically this wouldnt be covered by the definition for SDPC that most insurer use which is a single place of work and as such technically business class 1 would be required.

Class 1 is often free and at most a token charge but of course adding it mid term adds an admin fee that can be up to £50. Unless you are the tiny number that get a bigger charge its sensible to always add Class 1 if you ever use the car for work

As your insurer has said its fine though then it is, just note the time and date of the call just for belts and braces if anything happens

Zero_Gravitas

I have to say for that sort of distance I'd be expecting my employer to provide a hire/pool car for me to attend the course.

ZG.

captainawsome

Your insurer said your covered, and that will be recorded. So what we say is irrelevant. Enjoy your course (and make sure you get VAT receipts for your fuel to claim the expenses back)

Aretnap

Zero_Gravitas wrote: »

I have to say for that sort of distance I'd be expecting my employer to provide a hire/pool car for me to attend the course.

I'd be jumping at the chance to use my own car and claim 40p/mile, personally.

Aretnap

Is the purpose of the journey

(A) Social,
(B) Domestic,
(C) Pleasure,
(D) Commuting to your usual place of work/study (or whatever wording your policy uses to describe commuting), or
(E) Something else?

If the answer is (e) then the strictly correct answer is that you need business insurance, however if your insurer have told you that they'd cover you for a one off journey then that should be OK. I'd also want to keep a note of the time of the call and the name of the person I spoke to, just in case someone else tried to give me a different answer after the event.

I'd also agree that if there's any possibility that you might need to use your car for something like this again it's probably worth adding business use to your insurance from next year. It's never cost me more than about three poundsto add, it means you don't have to worry about things like this when they crop up, and if you can claim 40p/mile then even a fairly short journey to a conference or training session will more than pay for whatever it cost you.

londonTiger

Aretnap wrote: »

I'd be jumping at the chance to use my own car and claim 40p/mile, personally.

45p a mile, 18p of it is fuel and the remaining theoretically pays for the vehicles depreciation, service & wear and tear costs. There's no profit in it, just pays for the cost of running the car

Spicy_McHaggis

londonTiger wrote: »

45p a mile, 18p of it is fuel and the remaining theoretically pays for the vehicles depreciation, service & wear and tear costs. There's no profit in it, just pays for the cost of running the car

So why after so many miles/claims do you get a letter off the tax office? They think there's a profit in it.

Aretnap

londonTiger wrote: »

45p a mile, 18p of it is fuel and the remaining theoretically pays for the vehicles depreciation, service & wear and tear costs. There's no profit in it, just pays for the cost of running the car

Depreciation might be more of an issue if I had a new BMW I suppose - but on the sort of car actually I drive depreciation is negligible, and maintenance costs don't come close to the 25p/mile or so which is left over after petrol. So yes, there's plenty of profit in it thank you very much.