EV Insurance - charging cables liability 27 January at 11:46AM in Motoring 25 replies 1K views

JKenH

I received notification today from my insurers (Saga) of a change to the cover under the policy (the usual several pages of small print that nobody bothers to read)

Liability to others

We have added the following bullet point under ‘we do not cover the following’

• Liability for the death of or injury to any person caused by tripping over the charging cable whilst you are charging the insured vehicle and you have not taken due care to prevent an accident

The purpose of liability cover is to provide you with indemnity in respect of your negligence. I am not a lawyer but I believe, if you have taken all reasonable care, then the chances of you being found liable in negligence are quite slim although liability can also arise under statute or some other tort such as nuisance). If you cause an accident on the road because you have not taken care then your insurance policy would cover you so should we be worried about this exclusion?

I imagine the intention is to avoid liability where you are running a cable from the house across the pavement to charge your car and haven’t used a cable cover or channel, or taped the cable down but equally it could apply if you have left your cable in a coil on the ground when charging at a supermarket or in a car park. 

What constitutes due care?

As an example, I used to use a bright green 3m cable at my local Tesco 7kw charger which conveniently (for me) didn’t quite reach the ground, thus keeping the cable clean. If someone was taking a short cut between the car and charger and tripped over the cable would I be considered as having failed to take due care? The risk of an accident was foreseeable and it might be considered that I didn’t take reasonable care to prevent it. A 6m cable could also cause a trip hazard so maybe tuck any spare under the car. 

daveyjp

Who knows, but it will only take a few claims for insurers to require EV owners to also have barriers to prevent people walking between the car and the charging point.

DullGreyGuy

Its not a new thing for insurance to have due care clauses, theft of items from inside a vehicle normally have a similar wording so the insurer doesnt have to pay for your stolen laptop if you leave it sitting on the passenger seat whilst the car is parked and unattended. 

Ultimately it will take time for some complaints to make it through the Financial Ombudsman process to see what they deem due care should be interpreted as. We'll then possibly see evolution of wording to clarify (just like some policies now say items have to be in a locked boot or glovebox) if it means taping or tunnels etc.

Having seen a few just having loose cables from their property, across the pavement and into their car its no big surprise. To be honest you see the same with people cleaning their cars too but the EV issue is likely to become more common over time 

Car_54

The 3rd-party liability of a motor policy covers injuries “caused by, or arising out of, the use of a motor vehicle …” [Road Traffic Act 1988, s145].
Is the car being ‘used’ while parked and being charged? I’d suggest not, and in that case Saga don’t need this particular clause to avoid liability.

facade

Insurance has always been against what might happen, never against what is likely to happen.

They will do all they can to avoid paying out, I recall a thread about van hire insurance specifically excluding the most likely form of damage- the roof of a high van.

In this case you are right, they are never going to pay out if someone trips over the cable. I don't think the public liability cover on your house insurance will either, even if the cable were wholly on your own property, as they exclude use of mechanically propelled vehicles.

user1977

facade said:

I don't think the public liability cover on your house insurance will either, even if the cable were wholly on your own property, as they exclude use of mechanically propelled vehicles.

I wouldn't say tripping over a cable which happens to be for charging a car is "use of a vehicle" though.

rigolith

Tripping over a cable between a charger and a car, exactly where any reasonable person would expect there to be a cable, wouldn't put liability on the cable owner.

It would be like tripping over the front door step and then trying to claim that the lack of signage and orange chevrons was to blame.

Alanp

It’s a shame it’s come to this, where there’s blame there’s claim, in my day it was a simple look where your going, I wonder if anyone will try and sue the council for crossing the road whilst looking at their mobile phone, stating that there should have been some kind of alarm, it seems common sense is being bred out of the human race…

DullGreyGuy

Alanp said:

It’s a shame it’s come to this, where there’s blame there’s claim, in my day it was a simple look where your going, I wonder if anyone will try and sue the council for crossing the road whilst looking at their mobile phone, stating that there should have been some kind of alarm, it seems common sense is being bred out of the human race…

They tend to sue the driver that hits them rather than the council. The best the driver can hope for is some contributory negligence being put on the pedestrian but thats only a moral victory as financially it only helps your insurers and you'll be paying your full excess to get your car repaired

JKenH

Major Highway Code change could see EV owners face legal action over charging cables

Electric car owners could face legal action if someone trips over their cable while they charge their EV.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1722212/electric-cars-highway-code-laws-warning-charging-cable

The Highway Code recommends displaying a warning sign. If you fail to do this will you be deemed as having failed to take reasonable care?

Like this perhaps 

or this

user1977

I think the point is more how to defend the claim - even if you think you have a reasonable defence, if your insurer thinks it's outside the terms of your policy then you're on your own.

And I don't think the idiots stretching cables across a public pavement should consider themselves safe from liability - "you should watch where you're going" isn't a great defence in relation to other claims for slips and trips.