Van hire excess policy - no commercial use

Herzlos

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

but not all vans are used by businesses, and this insurer is only looking to insure the other use cases. 

it's no more a scam than McDonalds refusing to sell a Whopper.

custardy

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.

Its on this page before you even get to adding any details. I think they are pretty transparent 

forgotmyname

Does your own insurance not cover you for hired vehicles?   We used to hire them without the insurance and provide our own
insurance details. Fair bit cheaper also.

Ectophile

forgotmyname said:

Does your own insurance not cover you for hired vehicles?   We used to hire them without the insurance and provide our own
insurance details. Fair bit cheaper also.

That may rather depend on the policy.  One of mine only covers cars, the other covers nothing (I will have to change insurer this year, as I don't like that).

And it will be third party only, so if you prang the hire car, you're paying for it.

DullGreyGuy

Ectophile said:

forgotmyname said:

Does your own insurance not cover you for hired vehicles?   We used to hire them without the insurance and provide our own
insurance details. Fair bit cheaper also.

That may rather depend on the policy.  One of mine only covers cars, the other covers nothing (I will have to change insurer this year, as I don't like that).

And it will be third party only, so if you prang the hire car, you're paying for it.

Sounds like you are talking about DOC, you should read your policy as despite its name the wording often is really "vehicles" and includes anything up to 3.5t vans. It often excludes vehicles rented to you. 

However imagine that ForgotMyName is talking a commercial fleet policy which will enable you to include hire vehicles on a comp basis. Guessing you dont have a fleet of vehicles but instead occasionally rent one vehicle when you need it.

CKhalvashi

Nobbie1967 said:

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.

Anything to do with events (as someone who operates live music events as a main business activity) is extremely high risk for insurance purposes. Insurers seem to imagine huge rounds of paparazzi and high speed driving. The reality is small events serving diaspora markets averaging about 140 attendees, so not quite as exciting.

If you need to rent and not buy a van, I'd suggest somewhere like Apex which is strictly self-insured. We've had long term double cab hires from them in the past (normally during peak periods and not since 2019) and insurance has typically run at around £200/month in addition to the rental payment with their preferred insurance partner.

For our owned Sprinters/EV Vivaros (splitter and double cab respectively), we've typically run at £1800-2k/year for insurance depending on the mood of the insurer's computer when we put the request for quotes in. The Vivaro's are a little cheaper than the Sprinters on average, probably as they're factory spec apart from carpets in the load area and not run under a small production standard (which were converted in-house).

DullGreyGuy

CKhalvashi said:

Nobbie1967 said:

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.

Anything to do with events (as someone who operates live music events as a main business activity) is extremely high risk for insurance purposes. Insurers seem to imagine huge rounds of paparazzi and high speed driving. The reality is small events serving diaspora markets averaging about 140 attendees, so not quite as exciting.

Events cover much more than live music and paps... the company next to us does event design for museums and load a whole host of weird, and often very cool, set design stuff into their vans but I doubt they've ever seen one pap despite having vastly higher numbers of attendees than 140.

CKhalvashi

DullGreyGuy said:

CKhalvashi said:

Nobbie1967 said:

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.

Anything to do with events (as someone who operates live music events as a main business activity) is extremely high risk for insurance purposes. Insurers seem to imagine huge rounds of paparazzi and high speed driving. The reality is small events serving diaspora markets averaging about 140 attendees, so not quite as exciting.

Events cover much more than live music and paps... the company next to us does event design for museums and load a whole host of weird, and often very cool, set design stuff into their vans but I doubt they've ever seen one pap despite having vastly higher numbers of attendees than 140.

The point I'm making is that neither have we. Only a few times this year have we had a local newspaper come and visit on a specific project, so nothing exciting. As a company we operate 1 event a year where there are large numbers of press, they've got better things to do than looking at the vans (which we don't take most years). It doesn't stop insurers assuming the worst though when quoting.

Steve182

Many, possibly most instances of van hire for commercial use would be companies. We do it if one of our vans is in for repair or we don't have a suitable vehicle for a specific job.

Typically our own company's motor insurance would cover the hire, not the hirer's insurance, so there is no need for excess protection for commercial use.

The policy you are describing is probably designed just for the small minority of non-commercial users, who obviously cannot insure the van under their own business policy.

If you are a commercial user, using the van for business you should discuss the cover with your own company insurer to see if you can get a better rate