Van hire excess policy - no commercial use 5 October 2022 at 10:10AM edited 5 October 2022 at 10:26AM in Motoring 19 replies 496 views

seatbeltnoob

Please square the circle for me. I hired a van from enterprise. I use it for my events business. Had to take it to one address to deliver loads of equipment. We do setup as well so I don't think this is for hire & reward (or multidrop courier).

Anyway, I tried to get cover for excess from a third party. Because enterprise wanted £25 a day (£50 for the whole hire). Quester (and others) do it for £20 for the whole hire - but they all have no commercial use clause on it.

How the **** does a van hire excess policy have no commercial use clause on it? Questor even have NO COMMERCIAL VEHICLES in their wording https://policydocuments.s3.amazonaws.com/153/Fortegra/GB/11191000.pdf (check page 10). Are they taking the P or what?

How do you distinguish commercial use from business use?

This seems like an outright scam, you take out a van hire excess policy in good faith that it's going to cover a van for typical van use. But then there have a no commercial vehicles policy which can be extended to cover a van. I didn't go for it because the enterprise hire named the van as a commercial vehicle. So you know, if you try to make a claim with questor they wil lsay "sorry we have no commercial vehicle policy" and the rental agreement lists the van as a commercial vehicle.

Nobbie1967

Sounds like the policies are aimed at domestic use where a van would be hired for the domestic use of the hirer. I find nothing surprising about this state of affairs as commercial use is usually more intense and probably has a higher risk profile.

Herzlos

Questor make it pretty clear it's non commercial van hire, as they don't seem to offer *any* commercial insurance.

The 2nd paragraph in the van hire page is this:
"Our van hire excess insurance is perfect when renting a small or large van up to 7.5T to move house, transport large furniture or other non-commercial related uses."

Lots of people hire vans for non-commercial purposes; holidays, moving house, buying furniture and so on.

But really they can insure you under whatever terms they want; you don't need to agree to it.

Car_54

There is no practical distinction between 'commercial' and 'business'.

A van is a commercial vehicle. Your intended use is commercial. 

I'm not sure how it is a scam, if it's all in the Ts and Cs.

DullGreyGuy

seatbeltnoob said:

How do you distinguish commercial use from business use?

They are defined in the policy:

“Business Use” – The use of the rented vehicle for business, to solicit order or to deliver pre-purchased goods or to travel from customer to customer on a commercial basis.

“Commercial Use” – The use of the rented vehicle as a taxi, minicab, limousine or driving school or being used for commercial sales representatives to solicit orders.

They are however only excluded from annual polices

Grey_Critic

If you are a regular hirer why not take out your own policy. You would get a reduced rate on the hire.

seatbeltnoob

Car_54 said:

There is no practical distinction between 'commercial' and 'business'.

A van is a commercial vehicle. Your intended use is commercial. 

I'm not sure how it is a scam, if it's all in the Ts and Cs.

did you just ask how is that  a scam?

the name of the insurance product is van hire excess insurance. That makes it a scam because the T&Cs directly contradict the name of the title

seatbeltnoob

Grey_Critic said:

If you are a regular hirer why not take out your own policy. You would get a reduced rate on the hire.

its not regular enough. Bleieve it it hurts to have to pay £140 to hire a van for 2 days, but I can get by with my car for most uses. This order was particularly big.

seatbeltnoob

DullGreyGuy said:

seatbeltnoob said:

How do you distinguish commercial use from business use?

They are defined in the policy:

“Business Use” – The use of the rented vehicle for business, to solicit order or to deliver pre-purchased goods or to travel from customer to customer on a commercial basis.

“Commercial Use” – The use of the rented vehicle as a taxi, minicab, limousine or driving school or being used for commercial sales representatives to solicit orders.

They are however only excluded from annual polices

Thanks I missed that, But I did email them pre-purchase and didn't hear from them for 2 days.

Car_54

seatbeltnoob said:

Car_54 said:

There is no practical distinction between 'commercial' and 'business'.

A van is a commercial vehicle. Your intended use is commercial. 

I'm not sure how it is a scam, if it's all in the Ts and Cs.

did you just ask how is that  a scam?

the name of the insurance product is van hire excess insurance. That makes it a scam because the T&Cs directly contradict the name of the title

They don't "directly contradict", they simply limit the type of use. Lot's of people hire vans for SD&P use, e.g. moving furniture.

DullGreyGuy

seatbeltnoob said:

DullGreyGuy said:

seatbeltnoob said:

How do you distinguish commercial use from business use?

They are defined in the policy:

“Business Use” – The use of the rented vehicle for business, to solicit order or to deliver pre-purchased goods or to travel from customer to customer on a commercial basis.

“Commercial Use” – The use of the rented vehicle as a taxi, minicab, limousine or driving school or being used for commercial sales representatives to solicit orders.

They are however only excluded from annual polices

Thanks I missed that, But I did email them pre-purchase and didn't hear from them for 2 days.

It appears that they have recycled the policywording for multiple products and it really doesnt work... as noted above the use clause only applies to annual policies but they dont sell annual van policies and so the clause is redundant so should be removed (even if technically it doesnt cause harm the basic good practice isnt to have redundant wording).

I suspect the "commercial vehicle" is a similar issue, but it is not a defined term and so we have to fall back to plain english definition which means it will always be a bit woolly and as such has the potential for a complaint