Business insurance

[Cadmium]

Hi all. I have the standard social, domestic, pleasure and commuting insurance on the bike, but I’d like to us it to travel to a couple of other places of work when th weather’s good in the summer. The snag is that it seems to be *incredibly* expensive to add class 1 business use (the lowest level) even if I explain it’s only like to happen a handful of times a year and for a total of about 500 miles.

Some insurers have flat refused business use and others have offered massive premiums. Bennetts were hands-down the worst. When I called them to ask about the difference in cost, they withdrew the SDP&C option after I expressed an interest in doing a bit of work travel on the bike. I explained that I have business insurance on my car and have access to hire cars for work travel, but just having said that I was interested in business travel was enough for them to withdraw the quote for SDP&C. They confirmed, when asked, that they were assuming my dishonesty. Charming.

Do any of you have business use on your insurance (not riding for profit/hire etc, just work journeys to other places of work)? I’d love to know who you use.

 

[Loiq]

are you carrying company goods, for which there needs to be cover..?

 

[Cadmium]

Good question, but no - just me getting to somewhere else to do the same job. I’ve explained that when trying to get quotes.

 

[MrC99]

Do any of you have business use on your insurance (not riding for profit/hire etc, just work journeys to other places of work)? I’d love to know who you use.

Up until a couple of years ago I had class 1 insurance to get to various work (railway) locations on my bike and it was only about £10 extra on the premium. This was through BMW/Devitt and all I had to confirm was that I wasn't carrying anything for commercial gain. There were no restrictions such as mileage specified.

 

[Loiq]

is the place specified as a full time place of employment..?

 

[Snaf]

Mine are insured with Devitt LVE, KTM350EXC's at circa £110 each class1 two riders. The BMW F650GS was a bit more but is currently sorned and not insured.

 

[Neil W]

We had to have business use at work (so we could claim mileage ) , I never had an issue with either the car (when carrying Police Dogs ) or for the bike and at most I paid a £10 per annum premium , with the bike the Insurer usually waived any extra cost

 

[DJ123]

Each insurer/under writer is different as to what they cover.

On previous policies where i had SDP&C, it covered my business travel if i needed to attend one off travel for work to a different venue. E.g to attend a conference, go to a different site. So long as these were not in my contract as regular occurrences, or a core part of my role they were covered.

 

[Cadmium]

is the place specified as a full time place of employment..?

My main place of work is what I believe is considered commuting. The other couple of places are for the same employer but I’d only be there a few times a year.

We had to have business use at work (so we could claim mileage ) , I never had an issue with either the car (when carrying Police Dogs ) or for the bike and at most I paid a £10 per annum premium , with the bike the Insurer usually waived any extra cost

It seems as thought something has changed… or I’m not asking the right questions!

 

[Cadmium]

Each insurer/under writer is different as to what they cover.

On previous policies where i had SDP&C, it covered my business travel if i needed to attend one off travel for work to a different venue. E.g to attend a conference, go to a different site. So long as these were not in my contract as regular occurrences, or a core part of my role they were covered.

I’ll check this with my current insurer (Lexham), but I am pretty sure I’ve already asked them. This is exactly the type of journey I’d be taking.

 

[wessie]

the phrase insurers seem to be using now to define commuting is "one permanent place of work or study" which would seem to exclude occasional travel to a secondary site or training venue. This did not stop me using the bike to ride to a training event, especially if it was being held in a nice village hall surrounded by lovely rural roads. We often did this as it would mean we were away from the office for the day and of course, the head of department was probably on the hall's committee so would get some funds in the coffers for their Xmas bash.

 

[wheelnut]

I find that a bit strange - I've always had class 1 business use on my bikes (bikes are technically owed by the company) - no extra charge really. That's with cornmarket.

If you claim mileage then the accounts dept should be checking that you have class 1 in place.

And yes, the 'commuting' part of a policy is from to home to a normal place of work. Any travellling between site or to customers would need class 1.

 

[Sly]

the phrase insurers seem to be using now to define commuting is "one permanent place of work or study" which would seem to exclude occasional travel to a secondary site or training venue. This did not stop me using the bike to ride to a training event, especially if it was being held in a nice village hall surrounded by lovely rural roads. We often did this as it would mean we were away from the office for the day and of course, the head of department was probably on the hall's committee so would get some funds in the coffers for their Xmas bash.

Until you need to claim and insurance find out that's not your regular place of work and so they cancel your insurance..

 

[Eastmidsbiker]

Maybe not relevant, but if you have IAM certification, the IAM insurer (was Cornmarket last time I was insured with them) gives class 1 business cover as standard on their policies (or at least used to).

 

[wessie]

Until you need to claim and insurance find out that's not your regular place of work and so they cancel your insurance..

I was well aware of the risk, which I thought I had implied.

If the scenario you mention had been the case with a claim I would have raised a query about the T&C being unreasonable as many employers ask workers to attend training events at off site locations. Where that arises once a month then I would accept that the secondary site is also a regular place of work needing appropriate cover. Where the event is once or twice a year, I would protest under universal contract law about the policy having an unreasonable condition.

It has been discussed a number of times in this forum that insurance is not a special case when it comes to contract law and it is possible to challenge the T&C if they are unreasonable. @Wapping has mentioned a number of times about challenging T&C in a travel policy.

 

[BillWright]

Maybe not relevant, but if you have IAM certification, the IAM insurer (was Cornmarket last time I was insured with them) gives class 1 business cover as standard on their policies (or at least used to).

Cornmarket is the broker, and I’ve used that policy for some five years. It included Class one business use and protected the NCD. I think that last year they changed to a different provider for the IAM scheme, and that appears to have ended.