Is going on a course "business" travel

flyer

Hi all. My car insurance currently is social domestic and to and from work. However, work have asked me to drive to a 1 day course about 40 miles away. Would that be classed as business travel?

Brie

My understanding is that social domestic covers driving to work assuming your policy covers commuting, even if it's a different location.  But you are best to check with your insurance company.  

Aretnap

Driving to a course for work/business purposes does count as business travel yes. As a general rule if you can claim mileage/expenses from your employer for the journey, it's business use.

Contrary to the post above, standard "commuting" cover will generally only cover driving to your one usual place of work. If you are working (or studying) away from your normal workplace you need business cover.

The extra premium for doing a small number of business miles a year is likely to be very low (or even zero) but there will likely be an admin fee to pay to add it mid term. Which is why it's often worth adding it to your policy even if you don't regularly do business travel, just in case you get sent on a one off course or meeting one day. 

Sandtree

Brie said:

My understanding is that social domestic covers driving to work assuming your policy covers commuting, even if it's a different location.  But you are best to check with your insurance company.  

SD&P and SDP&C are not the same thing, one is personal use of your car only, the other includes commuting to a single permanent place of work.

Using your car to go to a course, going between sites in the day, running an errand to drop something off to a client as a favour etc do not fall within the definition of commuting and all would at least require business class 1 cover (the later could require hire & reward).

In practice the Ombudsman has on occasions sided with policyholders where the event was truly out of the ordinary and in no way representative of normal use. That said, business class 1 often doesn't cost anything more than SDP&C and so its generally much more sensible to buy the higher cover and know there are no risks if you have to run to another site to deal with an issue or go to a meeting etc than rely on the goodwill of the Ombudsman and the 12 month wait for that outcome. 

[Deleted User]

Your employer should cover the cost. Do they have any vehicles you could use? Taxi maybe if it's a one off. Always used to get the taxi to the airport once a year.