Business insurance for vehicles?

i do not use my car for work anymore(mainly ecause its expensive ) but when i did my work insisted on business insurance, because even when commuting between places of work you are still doing this as part of and on behalf of your work, the legal standpoint that is used is that if anything happened to you whilst commuting beteen places of work and you didnt have business insurance its can be brought back on them similary if you dont have business insurance on your vehicle and you crash they may not pay out.
also if you are carrying anyone other than youself it is definatly needed hth

[widepants]

A close friend of mine worked as a fitter for a large multinational company on an industrial estate.He had to pop 400m down the road to pick up a spare part and someone had already taken the small van used for such jobs.He just jumped in his car for the couple of minutes journey , but on the way he knocked a lad off his bike.
He had the book well and truely thrown at him , because he said he was off to pick up a part.If he has said he was on his way to the burger van ,then there would have been no problem.
A friend of mine who is a kitchen fitter , lost his estate car because he was running it on "non" buisness insurance.
He had to re insure it before he could get it back

[embee]

I'm self employed and run a small hatchback car.

My insurance is for SD&P and use for my business (note MY business). That covers carrying tools and equipment/materials used in the process of running my business, but very specifically does not cover the carriage of goods for hire or reward.

So I can buy some materials and take it to a place where I do some work for someone, but if they then ask me to take something else to someone else for them which might be deemed not to be part and parcel of me doing the particular job I'm contracted to do, then no.

However, if I do a contract for a piece of work which means achieving a certain outcome, and in order to do that it means that I need to take something away from the job to somewhere to have some machining done for example, then I'm OK because they're not paying me to carry the goods, they're paying me to provide finished product.

Subtle differences.

If in any doubt, admit nothing.

Remember of course that to carry waste away from a job you need a council permit, unless it's garden waste (I think..........). I don't carry waste, not ever never.

(Edit - the insurance is cheap, I am old but it is all singing and dancing insurance for about £170)

[timwilky]

In a previous occupation I have had thrown out a number of claims as it was obvious when I inspected damaged vehicles they were being used for business purposes.

Best one being the Ann Summers rep who still had all her party stock in the boot and didn't think to get it out before the vehicle got towed. The stock was sufficient to convince everyone she was using it for business purposes