Car Insurance - Commuting Definition

tamste

I am in the process of renewing my car insurance. Previously I have included business use as occasionally (2-3 times/year) I use the car to travel to a clients business premises to provide consultancy services. I am mainly retired and although I am a director of a ltd. consultancy business, most of the work is remote with very occasional need to travel. I only do 2-3 days work per month on average.

Looking at commuting, I find it difficult to understand precisely what this means. When I travel for work purposes, it is to a single place each day, though the location may be different on different days. Including business use seems a little over the top in this situation in my view, even though I have had it included for a number of years. Including it in my recent quotes seems to add ~40% premium vs Social, Domestic, Pleasure and Commuting.

So, the precise definition of what constitutes commuting is something I am interested in. I've not found it easy to find this definition on insurers websites, or their policy booklets.

Anybody know if there is a standard definition somewhere?

QrizB

Commuting usually means to a single, fixed place of work. The sort of thing a regular employee in a factory or office would do. This is unlikely to apply to a consultant.

My employer has several sites and, while I'm based at one of them, I occasionally have to visit others. I include business mileage on my vehicle insurance to allow for this.

Adding business to my insurance only costs me an extra £10 or so for the year. I'm surprised it makes such a difference to yours!

daveyjp

Commuting is travel between your home and usual place of work.  In your case I assume as you are a self employed consultant your place of work is your own home, so you never commute.

However as you run a business any extra costs of business use on vehicle insurance are an allowable business expense so you should be charging your clients mileage and travel time to cover that cost,

How much extra very much depends on the insurance company and your business mileage.  Extra cost on all our policies is minimal, but declared business mileage is also low, less than 1,000 miles a year.

YBR

When I first added a minimum business mileage to my car insurance, the cost actually decreased so I suggest you get a quote. I'm sure insurance companies would see you occasional trips as business.

MattMattMattUK

When I added business usage to my policy it made no difference to the cost, other people I know have found the same. It might make a difference for certain professions but for most I doubt it changes the cost by any meaningful amount.

Muskey

Commuting covers travel from home to a single fixed place of work, ie home to/from office daily.
For travel to different locations as with your circumstances, you need business cover.
When adding to my policy, the cost was £0.

tamste

Main problem I can see is that if I ask for a quote with business mileage, the number of suppliers is much reduced, and the much lower quotes are from those that don't quote when business miles are included. So yes, I agree it makes little difference with those companies that quote when I add business miles, but I need to go to each insurers website to make a change to add business mileage if initial quote was for SDLC

MyRealNameToo

Whos not willing to quote for Class 1 business use? Are they companies you'd actually want to go with?

Agree with others on commuting to be a single fixed place but would also add it includes part journeys, so if you drive from home to the station then get a train to the office that still commuting even though the majority of the journey may have not been done in the car. 

dunstonh

Whos not willing to quote for Class 1 business use? Are they companies you'd actually want to go with?

On comparison sites, there are now cut-down versions of car insurance with many of the additional things removed.     Really aimed at those who are short of money and need to pay as little as possible.     

Most normal consumers would not consider them, but people who are desperately short of money would.   It looks like the OP wants to consider them.

Plus, on the non-budget plans, most insurers do not add a cost for business use if is non-stock/goods related or is minimal if they do.

vacheron

My wife needs business use on her car (about 1000 miles per year), but I don't. We have always found that the cheapest quotes we get on the comparison websites have always been happy to add it on for about £0-£15 per year tops, so it's really not worth the risk of not doing it. 

This year, Aviva worked out the cheapest on the comparison sites for both our respective policies, and Aviva now includes personal business use as on all their policies as standard too. 

TELLIT01

It was a few years ago, but when I added business use there was no additional charge.