Domestic or commuting?

BarelySentientAI

Aretnap said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

chrisw said:

Hi,
I'm retired with no other jobs so my car insurance automatically excludes commuting.

My wife still works and usually takes the bus. If I run her in to work and pick her up maybe 2 or 3 times a week, is that classed classed as commuting or domestic duties? Otherwise how do I reconcile retired with commuting?
Thanks.

chrisw said:

Hi,
I'm retired with no other jobs so my car insurance automatically excludes commuting.

My wife still works and usually takes the bus. If I run her in to work and pick her up maybe 2 or 3 times a week, is that classed classed as commuting or domestic duties? Otherwise how do I reconcile retired with commuting?
Thanks.

Chris is saying he is excluded from commuting insurance as he is retired .....which theoretically means that his insurance does not cover him for taking his wife to work.The Insurance Business has gone crazy....when does it all end.There must be thousands of Pensioners ferrying their working Partners to work without commuting Insurance blissfully unaware they are uninsured.Beam me up Scotty !!!!!

Depends how the policy is worded. Many will define commuting along the lines of "driving to your own place of work or study". Which means that it isn't required for driving someone else to their place of work - that would come under social use (doing a favour for a friend/relative/spouse).

Notice the difference:

NFU


Admiral


First - clearly shows that this situation would not be commuting.
Second - much more ambiguous.  It's a place of work but your journey.  Given that almost every non-domestic destination is someone's place of work, this would make an interesting test case.

Mustbeananswer??

Which is why Insurance is making a complete mockery of itself.

And the Customer hasn't got a clue what they are investing in when they buy it.

The Ombudsman has it right.... he nearly always falls on the side of The Consumer making genuine mistakes in his decisions.It cant be any other way???

DullGreyGuy

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Which is why Insurance is making a complete mockery of itself.

And the Customer hasn't got a clue what they are investing in when they buy it.

The Ombudsman has it right.... he nearly always falls on the side of The Consumer making genuine mistakes in his decisions.It cant be any other way???

How's it making a mockery because different policies have different terms? Do you think Samsung and LG TVs work identically with all the same features or are TV companies making a mockery of themselves too?

Customers dont read is much more the problem, have a look at today's news on the Privacy Policy that offered a free bottle of fine wine but took months for anyone to claim it because people dont read. 

The Ombudsman upholds 31% of complaints about insurance so not sure how they "near always fall on the side of the consumer" when in over 2 out of 3 cases they say the insurer was correct. In this space insurers do better than Banks. In some classes it's even more extreme with only 19% of complaints on bicycle insurance being upheld, so less than 1 in 5 cases. 

Goes to show in most cases either the wording is clear and being applied properly or if there is ambuguity the insurer is acting fairly. Many insurance complaints at the end of the day are nothing to do with terms but if a 20 year old rust bucket of a car is worth the £2,000 the insurer says or £5,000 the customer thinks. These types are not helped by the pub chat of "never accept the first offer" etc

Mustbeananswer??

OK DGG...I stand corrected...you obviously have a vast knowledge of the subject after reading your posts.

I am very surprised at their low score rate for the Ombudsman. 

XRS200

BarelySentientAI said

If there was an incident whilst giving someone a lift to work, a reasonable answer to the question "was the vehicle being used for commuting at the time?" would be yes.  

My answer would be that I was giving a friend a lift

Mustbeananswer??

So could I ask.....my Policy Booklet says ....we wont cover loss or damage when your vehicle is not being used for the explicit purposes included in your Certificate of Motor Insurance.... Mine is SD AND P....we have determined that I am probably not commuting as it is not my place of work.There is no definitions in my policy booklet for Social Domestic and Pleasure(That I can see)...where do I stand as a case in point please??And if my booklet doesnt tell me the perameters do they exist or not??

You see I dont want to pull the Education Card but I do think I am slightly above the recognised average (Grammar School 50 years ago) and I am finding it hard to find a slot to put my situation in!!God knows how others might struggle??DGG will tell me where I fit I reckon....

XRS200

Mustbeananswer?? said:

So could I ask.....my Policy Booklet says ....we wont cover loss or damage when your vehicle is not being used for the explicit purposes included in your Certificate of Motor Insurance.... Mine is SD AND P....we have deternined that I am probably not commuting as it is not my place of work.There is no definitions in my policy booklet to Social Domestic and Pleasure(That I can see)...where do I stand as a case in point please?? 

If something isn't defined then normal dictionary meaning would apply.

Your insurers are the only ones that could give you a definitive answer

Mustbeananswer??

I called them they said they would check with the Underwriters and email me back......but they didnt ...because not even they know.Lets wait for DGG because he says its us that dont understand.....not the Policy writers.It maybe the OP doesnt need any extra insurance either ??
 

stuhse

My goodness I'd better stop pulling over to give my neighbour a lift to the station on the odd occasion my trip for the morning paper coincides with him walking to the station on a rainy morning !

More seriously I have a company car so when buying myself a hobby car I opted out of commuting to keep the insursnce cost down.  In the first year it turned out there were odd occassions when I did take the hobby car to work for various logistical reasons.  The following year I decided to ask how much extra commuting cover would be as it occurred to me the car getting stolen from outside my workplace might take some explaining.  The extra cost was....you guessed it £0.

DullGreyGuy

Mustbeananswer?? said:

OK DGG...I stand corrected...you obviously have a vast knowledge of the subject after reading your posts.

I am very surprised at their low score rate for the Ombudsman. 

They publish the date each year, though with a fair lag. You can see the high level summaries https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/data-insight/annual-complaints-data/annual-complaints-data-insight-202223 and at the bottom is an excel spreadsheet with more granular data. 

There are extremes though, mini-bonds have a 86% upheld rate whereas 12% of Critical Illness 

Contrary to popular belief insurers do typically payout what is intended to be covered, insurance however is frequently a highly commoditised distress purchase (no one wants to buy it, no one brags about the quality of insurance they bought) where cheap is best until the time of claim.