Adding on Business cover

skintnutta

Hi everyone,

Thanks in advance. I have changed my job within same organisation and will be travelling (just me, no passengers or equipment) between 3 different hospitals. They asked me to add on business cover to my insurance, who is with Southern Rock through Debenhams.

After phoning them I find out that they can't add on Business cover to my policy and I would need to take out a whole new policy, which was about £300 more a year! When I said I'd think about it and would shop around and asked if I could cancel my policy if needed I was told that would be £75 plus more depending on how many days where left on the policy.

Does anyone have any experience of anything similar to this and could offer some advice? I am going to email questioning this. Who would you suggest I contact, Debenhams or Southern Rock. I start my new job next week so need to get it sorted.

Thank you

Fiona

Aylesbury_Duck

skintnutta wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Thanks in advance. I have changed my job within same organisation and will be travelling (just me, no passengers or equipment) between 3 different hospitals. They asked me to add on business cover to my insurance, who is with Southern Rock through Debenhams.

After phoning them I find out that they can't add on Business cover to my policy and I would need to take out a whole new policy, which was about £300 more a year! When I said I'd think about it and would shop around and asked if I could cancel my policy if needed I was told that would be £75 plus more depending on how many days where left on the policy.

Does anyone have any experience of anything similar to this and could offer some advice? I am going to email questioning this. Who would you suggest I contact, Debenhams or Southern Rock. I start my new job next week so need to get it sorted.

Thank you

Fiona

Use one or more of the comparison sites to see what new policies will cost and if they are cheaper than the proposed policy minus £75, consider switching.

Presumably you will be paid 45 pence per mile for the inter-hospital travel? That amount is meant to cover costs such as petrol, wear and tear and insurance costs.

skintnutta

Ok thank you for your advice.

Yes I will be paid per mile but I'm not sure how much.

Aylesbury_Duck

I think that's a reasonable request of your HR department, along with an estimate of annual business mileage (excluding your commute to and fro work, normally).

MataNui

Definitely shop around. You will probably find policies with business cover no more expensive (i found them actually cheaper) than a standard domestic and commuting policy. Pretty sure even with the £75 cancellation you will beat the additional £300 you are being quoted.

peter_the_piper

Agree with MataNui, I've had business cover for years and its usually the same price, or very similar.

walwyn1978

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Agree with MataNui, I've had business cover for years and its usually the same price, or very similar.

This. When I did it for the first time I think I had to take out a new policy though, rather than just adding it on midway, so that may be similar to what you're experiencing now. But in terms of cost I insure two cars both for business use and aim to pay no more than £10 extra in total from the cost of standard fully comp policies, and usually get there. I'm with Aviva at the moment who gave me business cover for free, you could check then out?

CardinalWolsey

Don't forget to review the annual mileage you will now cover as well - this will increase as a result of driving intraday between hospitals, and you may find you haven't "bought enough miles" from your insurer.

sevenhills

MataNui wrote: »

Definitely shop around. You will probably find policies with business cover no more expensive (i found them actually cheaper) than a standard domestic and commuting policy. Pretty sure even with the £75 cancellation you will beat the additional £300 you are being quoted.

The OP would likely be doing more miles, so it would be more expensive.

Bigphil1474

OP, if you are a Unison member (just thinking with you working at hospitals), try the LV Unison website for a member discount. I have business cover included with them and it looks like it was about an extra £10 (although difficult to work out exactly). As above, you need to make sure you give the insurance co. an accurate estimate of your new miles a year. If you don't have business use then you're not insured for your type of driving. Make sure it's the right business use - usually Class 1.

System

I've never been charged more for having that kind of business use on, been doing it for well over a decade between various insurers.