Good evening all

I am currently reviewing the situation regarding motor insurance cover for our employee's who use their personal cars for occasionally visiting venues that are not their normal place of work. This is for training courses and conferences. It would be my view that this could not be done if the employee only has social, domestic and pleasure cover plus commuting to and from their normal place of work and they would need to have business cover on their insurance.

A slight variation on this is travelling in their personal cars to and from occasional off site social events (parties, awards ceremonies etc). I'm less sure on the insurance situation with this.

I would very much welcome the thoughts and comments of forum members.

Thank you in advance.    

Edited by user 13 June 2019 16:49:40(UTC)  | Reason: Added words

Edited by user 13 June 2019 20:31:38(UTC)  | Reason: FFS

My insurance went down by raound £100 when I added business use onto my insurance- some of your colleagues may benefit from this depending ont heir insurer and their driving history?

Insurance cover for commuting normally covers travel from home to a single place of work. So if they drive straight to the course and home they are covered, They cannot go to another work location after going to the course even their usual work location. 

Originally Posted by: ricci

Insurance cover for commuting normally covers travel from home to a single place of work. So if they drive straight to the course and home they are covered, They cannot go to another work location after going to the course even their usual work location. 

If it is not your usual place of work then you are not covered and need business insurance.

Originally Posted by: Bigmac1

Originally Posted by: ricci

Insurance cover for commuting normally covers travel from home to a single place of work. So if they drive straight to the course and home they are covered, They cannot go to another work location after going to the course even their usual work location. 

Incorrect

If it is not your usual place of work then you are not covered and need business insurance.

My insurance covers me for commuting to other venues such as training courses, however, it is directly from "home" to the place of commuting. not from home, to work, to training venue, etc

Anyone believing any venue is covered by a commuting policy should very carefully read all their current insurnace documents - bit of research arcross the web indicates the common terminology in commuting is "to and from A pemanent place of employment"

It also appears that some insurers are removing the automatic right to drive other cars under the terms

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

Anyone believing any venue is covered by a commuting policy should very carefully read all their current insurnace documents - bit of research arcross the web indicates the common terminology in commuting is "to and from A pemanent place of employment"

It also appears that some insurers are removing the automatic right to drive other cars under the terms

Venue may have been the wrong word on my behalf, my policy states that I'm covered travel to different places of work but only one place of work per day

I have seen a few people also make the mistake of being able to drive any other car as their as are fully comp and believed this covered them. I do have that feature on my insurance, but I can not drive another vehicle that is registered at the same address (ie the wife's car) on my insurance.

Originally Posted by: ttxela

I'd be interested in the response from someone who has experience of them. Imagine a number of (fictional) scenarios;

You can only get answers to them by reading the policy.  There's no such thing as standard car insurance - every company has their own foibles.  I would expect fleet insurance even more so.  If your head office policy is third party cover, for example, it will be legal for you to take the parcel to the post office, and the company will be covered, but you won't get any payout in any of your scenarios.

Sure this was recently discussed

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t128379-Company-Provided-Insurance

whilst not necessarily illegal there are the issues of who is insuring what at the time of incident (and whether or not the existence of one invalidates the other) making for an even more protracted claim than dealing with your own insurer.

Unless they have cover including Business Use then I would think in the situations you are talking about they will not be insured.  Check with your fleet insurer who will be able to give you the advice you need to pass on to your employees.

Originally Posted by: Hsquared14

Unless they have cover including Business Use then I would think in the situations you are talking about they will not be insured.  Check with your fleet insurer who will be able to give you the advice you need to pass on to your employees.

Not as easy as you'd have thought it might be unfortunately since our insurance is arranged by a head office abroad.

In my case the query arose because an internal document was issued stating rather simplistically that people no longer needed to cover there personal vehicles for business use since this complany policy was in place and naming me as the person to talk to about it in the event of an accident!

This was somewhat of a suprise to me and I did suspect, as seems borne out by advice here, that the situation was not as simple as all that. An ordinary employee reading the document may be reassured that all is well for him to whizz off in the car he drove to work in to perform a business errand under the protective umbrella of the company policy whereas in fact, all he has is the minimum legal cover and should he suffer a personal loss he would be effectively on his own.

Fortunately this document has not found its way into general circulation and I shall do my best to ensure it doesn't!

To go back to the OP and the questions asked, these are my understandings of the situation.

The significant word in the name of the policy is occasional. It will cover any member of staff to drive any vehicle for which they already have insurance cover in place (or are named on in the event of spouse/partner) but where that cover is limited to SDP and not business AND the travel was an occasional use. It is comprehensive, so in those examples, yes your wife's Ferrari would be covered if you were a named driver on her comprehensive policy, yes a modified car would be covered if your own comprehensive policy covered the modifications, and yes your agreed value would be honoured so long as your own comprehensive policy included it specifically. The caveat being the trip would need to have been something not regular, say attending a training course, or an ad-hoc unusual event like an emergency hospital run or something you are unlikely to need to do more than two or three times a year. Occasional.

I do use my own vehicle all the time and have business use included, naturally.

It is not intended to replace personal insurance with business cover, and we insist on that for any staff who do use their car for work purposes more than a few times per year, and we keep records and take our duty of care seriously, which is why I decided to propose the cover, as it effectively 'mops up' any staff who might find themselves needing to use their car and they/us not being sure if they are covered. It would not cover for example the weekly post office run.

Ours is specifically for schools/colleges/educational establishments and really is inexpensive for the peace of mind it gives. I just think of it as an extra level of assurance for our liability, particularly for training courses or the odd meeting.

Business insurance is a nightmare. I run my own company, have a company car. It's a LAndrover Defender Utility. It's a commercial vehicle. I called my insurance company, informed them of the vehicle, gave them my company name and detials, company bank details for payment. Happily drove it for work for 18 months, then a review of vehicle insurances by a contractor, I supplied a copy of my insurance certificate and it turned out I was insured as a SDP policy not a commercial policy which I had specified. 

So despite me informing them of exactly what I had and what I wanted to do they still messed it up.

Sorry Mark they didn't mess up - it is up to the insured to check their documentation on receipt to ensure it covers the correct risks. No good finding out the day you want to claim.

Is how we spotted Mrs R despite remaining with the same insurer for the last three years had suddenly lost other car cover until they were challenged to put it back free of charge.

This has been heavily discussed before.  There has been mention of gap insurance, Company liability cover for employee's on 3rd party basis (need to know what that really means as it makes a differecne if you're used to fully comp), short term cover for a single journey.  We know we can get insured for pretty much anything - at a price. Equally, every policy is slightly different, whether you answered a question slightly different, the insurer gives you / me something as a buy-in, our cover will vary.  It can be a pain, but the headlines really need to be checked carefully.  I'd advise anyone checking for grey fleet, that they have a list of relevant questions they ask themselves when reading the employee's cover.  If business use isn't glaringly obvious, then ask the employee and if still in doubt, get them to ask their insurer.  Sometimes it really can be simpler to provide a company vehicle. One of the almost universal conditions these days is the one mentioned above, that if you wish to drive a 3rd party vehicle, then that vehicle MUST also be insured so as to 'activate' your cover.