Ltd company Business van insurance

Nicola_Norman

The vehicle in question is owned by the company and is the registered keeper.
The sole user of the vehicle is the director.
Our renewal offer came through and a quick comparison online showed half the price.
But. The  apparently crucial difference being whether the policy stated the driver OR the company as the “insured” and in the event of a claim this could cause reason enough to not pay out. I cannot get my head around how these can be priced so differently with exact same drivers details.

Savvy_Sue

I wonder if 'the company' would be insured for 'any driver', which wouldn't mean 'any driver' but 'any driver you've told us about, and they'd better be over 25 with a full licence for at least 1 year and not too many points'?

Or it could actually mean 'any driver', thinking about it. The work van insurance used to require us to tell them about anyone who was going to drive it, in advance, and drivers had to be 25+, full licence for 1+ years, no more than 6 points. Then we changed insurer and although they agreed with us that it would be prudent for us to continue to impose those conditions, they would actually cover any driver at all, and we didn't have to name any. 

We used to use a broker, you might also find that useful. Comparison sites don't generally work very well for business insurance. 

DullGreyGuy

Nicola_Norman said:

The vehicle in question is owned by the company and is the registered keeper.
The sole user of the vehicle is the director.
Our renewal offer came through and a quick comparison online showed half the price.
But. The  apparently crucial difference being whether the policy stated the driver OR the company as the “insured” and in the event of a claim this could cause reason enough to not pay out. I cannot get my head around how these can be priced so differently with exact same drivers details.

The company is the owner and registered keeper they would normally be the policyholder and the insurance is then a business expense. 

The Director would need an insurable interest in the vehicle to be able to be the policyholder, eg their contract must state they are liable for the damage they cause to the vehicle. If this is the case then they can insure it but need to declare that they aren't the owner or registered keeper. It may be questionable if this can then be reimbursed by the company given its covering the director not the company. 

Consumer insurance is much more competitive than company and so would expect the director insuring it to be cheaper. Obviously you have to make sure you are declaring NCDs correctly, the Director cannot use the Company's etc. 

DullGreyGuy

irdam said:

The distinction between whether the driver or the company is listed as the "insured" on the policy can indeed affect the premium. Insurance companies assess risks differently, and they may perceive insuring a company-owned vehicle differently from insuring a vehicle for an individual.

In both cases the owner is the same so thats not a consideration. 

Some will insure vans under personal lines policies whereas others are business only and being a company insured it's got to be a business policy. As different sub classes of insurance this is likely to make a difference