Car Personal/Business Insurance for mature student

LesleyRay

Our daughter, a mature nursing student, is an additional driver on our personal car insurance, as she will need a reliable car when doing hospital placements.  However her university requires her to have business insurance, even though she will not be earning a salary. Our insurance company will not insure the main driver for personal and the additional driver for business.  Are there any other options? 

Sandtree

Who's the main driver of the car?

What driving will she actually be doing? Just to the hospital and back once a day or between different hospitals etc within the day?

Your problem will be that even if you added Business Class 2 to your insurance, which would cover intraday movements between sites for PH and ND almost all insurers expect both the PH and ND to work for the same business. On the basis you'd not actually be using the business element yourself you may get away with it but could be a fight at claim stage.

LesleyRay

Thank you for your response.
Her stepfather is the main driver and policy holder. He is retired, age 78, so presumably not eligible for business insurance.
Daughter's hospital placements take place 3 or 4 times a year, are approximately a month long each time and will be at the same hospital for that month, though each following placement will be at a different hospital. So during placement she will only be commuting to and from the hospital.
However, at various times, she will be accompanying a District Nurse on home visits, but in separate cars. (Covid rule).
Would it be possible to have two separate policies for the car? One personal for stepfather and one business for daughter?  Is that allowed?
She has a different address, so the car will move between the two homes. Does that further complicate the issue?

Sandtree

Ok, so the home visits would create the need for Business insurance.

Does she have her own vehicle ordinarily? If she does then she could have Business Class 1 (covers PH only) on that policy and then add your car as a Temporary Additional Vehicle each stint of using it.

Having two separate policies on a vehicle creates complexity when it comes to things like fire claims or if the car is stolen and crashed. Often both policies will have clauses that say their cover is invalid if another policy exists but wording for TAV often doesnt create this problem.

For couriers there are secondary add on policies that only take effect when you are driving for Amazon or Hermes etc however not come across a similar policy for business use for individuals to buy... corporates can buy something similar for their workforce so employees don;t need to do so.

LesleyRay

Can't see how to edit my post above - so just to clarify my question:
Would it be possible to have two separate policies on the same car - one  with stepfather as named driver for social and domestic use and the other with daughter as named driver for business use?

Sandtree

LesleyRay said:

Would it be possible to have two separate policies on the same car - one  with stepfather as named driver for social and domestic use and the other with daughter as named driver for business use?

As already answered above, if they are two full policies it causes problems because almost all Motor policies will say they are invalid if another policy exists.

So if the car is parked in the supermarket and a defect causes it to ignite writing off the car, the two neighbouring cars and damaging the surface of the carpark... which of the two policies respond? Both will say they're invalid because of the existence of the other.

As mentioned, there are certain products/mechanisms that are intended to be used in circumstances where there is potentially another policy already on the vehicle so don't have the exclusion meaning the secondary policy covers if its terms are met and your hubby's policy covers the rest of the time.

LesleyRay

Yes, she has her own vehicle, so getting Business Class 1 and adding our car as TAV would be the answer.
I really appreciate the trouble you have gone to in explaining this so clearly.  Our insurance company just said they couldn't help.  Thank you very much.

Sandtree

Obviously I havent given you advice... that is a regulated activity but the problem is that personal lines insurance is a comodatised distress purchase where 99% of people buy on price alone. Being able to give advice means you have to spend more time with the customer to ensure their demands and needs are met and you have evidence and justify the advice you have given which all takes time and adds costs... people will switch from a well known ethical brand to Bobs Mucho Cheapo Insurance to save £5 a year so what insurer is going to invest the time and training to offer an advisory service when people will just then go to Bobs to buy?

She should double check with her insurers before buying, and ideally with enough time to explore other avenues if for some reason they wont offer a TAV or have some other issue.