Liability Insurance for 14 year old

AkiseLawliet

Hi! I'm 14 and work as a sole mobile car cleaner. Ive recently been asked by multiple people if I have liability insurance but its far too expensive as I don't have regular expenditure to be able to pay for the insurance and materials. If I can it means that I get no profit and the whole idea is futile. I can't keep track of my expenditure in full as i have just started and need to evaluate my current financial status so i can see what i have left. Please Help!

Savvy_Sue

Hmmm. Your problem is compounded by the fact that at 14 I'm not sure you can legally enter into a contract for insurance or anything else!

My usual advice would be to find an insurance broker, but I think you're also going to need to find a friendly adult to enter into the contract, with you declared as doing the work. I'm afraid at 14 you may be high risk ...

Plus mobile car cleaner: do you have a licence for disposing of the waste water? You're not supposed to just throw it down a domestic drain. If you search (I'm too hot ...) I'm sure there's a thread about a car cleaning business.

But however you're trying to make money, you absolutely HAVE to keep track of both your income and expenditure. You may think you're not liable to pay tax, and almost certainly you're not, but that's only because you won't make enough profit. There's no lower age limit on a tax liability, it's all down to taxable income. Plus, you don't know until you've done that whether your business is viable.

Excel spreadsheet: the following columns
Date Who / What Money in Money out Balance

So the first rows might read

7/7/18 Startup funds £20
8/7/18 Cleaning materials £10 £10
9/7/18 Mrs Smith's merc £50 £40

Don't know if that helps at all ...

campbell19925

You're 14. If anyone trusts you to do cleaning work on their car they should understand the risks associated with letting a minor carry it out.

If anyone has a problem I assume they'd just take it up with your parents.

Crack on and make some money - and good on you for doing so too

Ozzuk

campbell19925 wrote: »

You're 14. If anyone trusts you to do cleaning work on their car they should understand the risks associated with letting a minor carry it out.

If anyone has a problem I assume they'd just take it up with your parents.

Crack on and make some money - and good on you for doing so too

Unless you are willing to underwrite the OP I'd be careful advising to just ignore and carry on given how litigious the UK is becoming!

I do see where you are coming from, and it will probably be totally fine, but what happens when someone says you scratched my new M3, who is going to pay? Do the punters even know the OP is 14? It isn't always obvious.

Maybe being clear this is a cash in hand type job, no liability will be accepted - may not stand up legally but might at least set an expectation with the customer for the service they are getting.

Sue's advice about waste water is a good one, you don't want someone making a complaint. I'd be extremely surprised if a 14 year old can get a license though...

Sea_Shell

How things have changed. I used to wash cars, local door knocking, at that age, liability wasn't on anyone's radar.

Just a bit of pocket money.

00ec25

Sea_Shell wrote: »

How things have changed. I used to wash cars, local door knocking, at that age, liability wasn't on anyone's radar.

Just a bit of pocket money.

nonetheless a scratch on a car is a valid concern and one which liability insurance is there to cover

however, as others have said, in today's world even a 14 year old kid, if in business, is expected to follow the law over trade waste (water) disposal

Savvy_Sue

The lad up the road used to wash cars before he went to Uni. I must admit it never occurred to me to worry about liability, but then our car's fairly scratched anyway. Nor did I think about the waste water: after all if I'd washed it I'd have been using the domestic drain!