Mileage Allowance, self employed

Grumpy_chap

sleepyjones said:

I actually got my dog food delivery today and was talking to the driver who said you can get insurance through Yodel, but he THINKS it's only to cover the parcels, ie : if someone breaks into your vehicle or you have an accident and parcels get damaged ... he wasn't entirely convincing that he actually knew that much about it ... but that's what he said, "You can get Insurance from Yodel, but I think it only covers the parcels".

I dunno if that's maybe the same as the Amazon thing mentioned. 

I don't believe so.  The arrangement that my Nephew had was that Amazon insured him when driving his car for Amazon deliveries - not just insuring the parcels, but covering his insurance for multi-drop driving use.  AIUI, it was basically an extension to the Amazon fleet policy.

Essentially, as a young driver and student, there was no way my Nephew could have worked for Amazon if he had to have his own car insured for multi-drop business use.  My Nephew just kept his car insured under his standard policy as a student and Amazon covered all the insurance uplift for when he was working for them doing deliveries.  I also understand that the cover provided by Amazon meant it would not be a claim on the individual's motor policy if there was an incident while he was doing deliveries - all passed to Amazon.

sleepyjones said:

Yeah, someone above mentioned that they had the option to buy insurance from Amazon (when said persons nephew was working with Amazon) ... so I'm wondering if it's the same, as in that insurance is only to cover the parcels, it doesn't actually cover the vehicle.

The arrangement my Nephew had was to cover the vehicle use.  I assume also the stuff he was carrying for them was covered by that as well.
I could understand why a courier such as Yodel would have "goods in transit" cover that did not extend to the vehicle use.  I suppose Amazon might also have that in some cases.
My Nephew did not "buy" the insurance as such from Amazon, but they did have different rates of pay depending upon self-insured (by the individual worker) or insured for the purpose by Amazon.  My Nephew still had to maintain a vehicle policy for SDP for everything else.
The Amazon system was quite clever in that there seemed to be infinite rates of pay, with surge pricing etc., and all managed (from the individual's perspective) through an app on the phone.  Perhaps a bit more like UBER than being an employee.  It was very flexible and suited my Nephew very well while he was at University.