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Hello,
Insurance advice please.
So the policy at work is when we have a first aid issue, where we would like to take the person to hospital, but it doesn't justify an ambulance (thankfully not a regular occurrence) we use the site car and are on the company insurance.
Site car is due to be retired and not replaced, the new plan is that we will use personnel cars and that that insurance, specifically requirement for driver to have business use cover, is not an issue as the individual driving their own car would be covered by public liability insurance .
So my questions are:
1 - Does that make sense to the STW brain trust, would we be covered, how far does the public liability insurance extend, same perks as normal car insurance (windscreen cover, courtesy car etc), my thinking is this is the business public liability insurance and would be against claims made against the company by a third party?
2 - What happens then once the 'casualty' has been dropped of and stays at hospital to be picked up later by a family member or whatever, would insurance companies classify the return trip to work as 'business use', or would we still be covered under the public liability?
I'm just trying to ensure we don't end up stitching up a well meaning employee.
THanks
Grey area between taking a colleague to hospital - SD&P - and being expected to do something for work purposes, ie business use.
Pretty sure PL cover can't be used to replace legally required motor insurance.
When I've done it I already had business use on my own car anyway.
You need to speak to your PL insurer, and your employees need to talk to their insurers. Some of them may take a dim view of two policies running in tandem on the same vehicle use.
It would be a very mean claims handler who decided that dropping a work colleague at the hospital be work just because it was during work hours.
My professional opinion (insurance underwriter, not motor at the moment but have got extensive experience) is that you’ll be fine. However that is my opinion and not a guarantee.
The other think worth checking is the cost of business use on the individuals insurance as it’s quite often free for the policyholder and spouse, but doesn’t apply to any other named drivers.
How often does this happen? Are you in the middle of nowhere? How far to the hospital? My old work used to send people in a taxi with the first aider.
Cuts out many of these issues.
Simple as we had an account. I did it twice in 12 years. Happened a reasonable amount as it was a large factory and chemicals site.
Thanks for the prompt responses, giving me just the sort of questions i was hoping for before the big discussion meeting.
Personally always make sure i have business use to avoid any issues
jonba - not very often at all, also working with chemicals, just a rural situation with over an hour to the hospital.
Good shout on the taxi option, we also have a firm on the books and we could write that into the procedure
Is a taxi a reasonable suggestion with that sort of distance?
I'd be pretty annoyed if I had to wait for a taxi (could be a while as rural and a non-scheduled trip) to go to hospital for an insurance reason. Even if it's not ambulance worthy it wouldn't be fun sitting around potentially in quite a bit of pain.
Sort of depends on the circumstance for me, if it was close colleague and I happened to be present at the incident I might volunteer to take them to hospital, I don't think it's very fair to expect a first aider who attends to then turn into a substitute ambulance service.
Also to add, if you drive an injured colleague to hospital then you should have a first sided with you as well. If the driver is the only first aider in the car you are not going to be able to respond if the casualty takes a turn for the worse.
We always use a taxi service. Casualty and first aider then go to hospital.
My gut reaction is your company are trying to take the piss with not replacing the pool car or not paying for business use insurance. Why not just pay the difference in insurance policy costs from non-business to business use? Almost every time I’ve added it on to one of my policies it’s been free or negligible cost increase?
Obviously if it were a life and death situation then we'd use our own cars, but we were told not to. Firstly because you're better of getting the professional help to the casualty rather than potentially exasperate the situation by getting stuck in traffic or something, and if its an injury with a potential spinal component then when you get to hospital they are not likely to risk lifting the person out of the car and get the fire brigade in to cut the roof off your car so they can lift the casualty out safely.
So basically no. And you'd need special insurance for driving on company business anyway rather than commuting with the odd ferry between sites or someting.
Class 1 business use covers carrying colleagues as far as I can see. Class 1 is often no extra when arranging cover- as a teacher it was always free and covered carrying pupils and fellow staff members to meetings or events. Never carried single pupils on my own though!
I think the simple answer is each employee who may be affected needs to ask their insurer of their private vehicle. Cover, definitions and restrictions will ultimately vary from insurer to insurer.
I cannot see company PL covering the legal requirement of valid insurance of a private motor vehicle and if your injured passenger voids your motor cover then your staff might be committing an offence.
When I did a first aid course a great many years ago I was told that as a First Aider in the workplace I should declare it if there was any possibility of carrying a casualty even though I had business use.
The reason given was that in circumstances where you have an injured or distressed passenger your risk profile might change. Speed, adrenaline levels, distraction impact of the passenger, pressure to get them to hospital. This is potentially not a risk that is factored into class 1.
No idea if this has changed as I'm long out of date for such things.
A company's Public Liability policy cannot extend to cover Road Traffic Act liabilities. They are completely different policies.
What this sounds like is a contingent liability thing, which covers liability arising from business use of the car, even when the car doesn't have business cover. It's the sort of thing Domino's have to cover the yoofs doing pizza delivery - the cost would be so high to the average 18 year old that some/many would simply not bother. So Domino's have their own policy specifically covering the business activities. The car must be insured "normally" too.
I don't know whether these policies can extend to cover the car itself as well as the liabilities.
I have never dealt with these but am aware of them, so apologies if some of what I've said is not 100%.
For the OP - I'd insist on a taxi based solution here. I'd also carry my own class 1 business use regardless.
The only time I was assured by an employer insurance would cover business use of our personal vehicles they asked for the cars details (make/model/reg), lots of people just refused/forgot to forward their car's details and therefore had to carry on booking hire cars for business travel.
I let them have my car's details, but I also carried on paying for business use on my own policy... And even then most of the time I simply booked a hire car whenever possible...
As for taking a colleague to the hospital, could it be argued as falling under 'social' use i.e. it's the sort of thing you would do for friends or acquaintance in or out of working hours? I suppose it's down to how much of a bastard your boss is and if he decides you were on the clock and/or were allowed to put in a mileage claim afterwards...
As for taking a colleague to the hospital, could it be argued as falling under ‘social’ use i.e. it’s the sort of thing you would do for friends or acquaintance in or out of working hours?
It's not "social, domestic and pleasure" use. Simply put, your journey starts at work and doesn't go directly home. So it's not a commute and it's not for social purposes because the invalid is a work colleague. So it's business use.
It doesn't matter what your boss is like either, you'll be the one in front of the magistrate explaining why your journey wasn't insured.
1 Adding business cover to car insurance has never increased the cost of my policy
2 But, the answer is if it's not urgent, then call a taxi using the company account