Car Insurance Commuting

Football56

Good afternoon.

Apologies if this has already been covered on forum. I am retired and have just renewed my car insurance to include social domestic and pleasure. I no longer travel to and from my place of work however I do give my son a daily lift to his place of work(no payment for this) and was just wondering if this should be classified as commuting. I appreciate best solution will be to contact insurance company but just trying to get a general idea. The policy does not come into affect for one more week and anybody have any idea if I do contact insurer will there be additional cost before commencement date. Checking online there seems to be a difference of around £7.00 to £10.00 annually for SDP+C

Brie

For the sake of £10 I might go for paying for it.  Of course if you are driving to the shops and dropping him off half way there then it's not commuting at all but I wouldn't want to have a claim denied on a technicality.

XRS200

If you are not working, you can't commute.

Aretnap

XRS200 said:

If you are not working, you can't commute.

Car insurance policies are mainly defined in terms of the things that they do cover, not the things that they don't cover.

Which means that if your policy covers social, domestic and pleasure use, the important question is not "am I commuting?" It's "am I using my car for social purposes, domestic purposes, pleasure purposes, or something else?" If it's something else then your policy doesn't cover it.

Personally I'd argue that giving a friend or relative a lift to work as a favour is social use, but the exact wording of the policy will matter.

XRS200

My policy includes

"Use for travel to or from a place of paid employment.,"

If you don't work, you can't commute.

maman

Surely it's a fine line between travelling to your own place of work and taking someone else to to their place of work. The fact that it's daily rather than just a one off I'd be inclined to pay the difference rather than try to argue the point when/if something goes wrong. 

sheramber

It is a place of employment for the son. 

The best answer will come from your insurance company. 

TELLIT01

Check with the insurer as they are the only one who can give a definite answer.  A few years ago I notices that commuting had been removed from my wife's car insurance so phoned to query.  I was told they had removed commuting as the default, but it could be put back on at no charge.  Made no sense to me or the person I was talking to!

Football56

Thanks for all replies. There does seem to be some confusion over this so have checked with insurer. They have indicated that they consider it commuting(rightly or wrongly) so to avoid any problems in the future I have updated policy to SDP+C