Insurance class - Business or carriage of goods for reward?

[Alextodrive]

Hi all,
hope this finds everyone well on a Sunday.

Insurance question, which I appreciate is ultimately going to be best placed at the feet of insurance brokers / companies to answer.

However I'm also curious to hear peoples thoughts here and their own experiences, as I find even with insurance companies I have ended up getting different answers to other previous queries.

I have my own van. With business insurance, which allows me to carry my own goods to different places of work.

There are occasions where I will need to hire in a specialist tool / piece of equipment from a rental company, to supplement my own work equipment, in order to complete a job.

Now I wouldn't consider myself a delivery driver or a courier of any sort. I'm not being paid to collect and deliver these tools, but I am being paid to turn up and do a job, where I will want to have hired in tools / equipment occasionally.

Would that be considered the carriage / haulage and carriage of other peoples goods for hire or reward? Or would these be considered the carriage of my own goods, as while ownership during a rental doesn't change, they're my tools to use and mine alone during the hire period.

Interested to hear anyones thoughts or personal experience?

[Decky_Q]

No it is not carriage of goods for hire ot reward.
Business cover is sufficient, your primary business is not delivering goods.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Decky_Q said:

No it is not carriage of goods for hire ot reward.
Business cover is sufficient, your primary business is not delivering goods.

^^^^This. There's hardly a tradesman in the world that hasn't hired in a tool or borrowed a tool for a specific job. That's not the carriage of goods for hire and reward. You're being paid to pave their driveway or whatever, not being paid to deliver a hired in cement mixer to their house.

[ingenieur]

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered. They have to insure their gear as they dole it out and people pay to rent it so they make sure they are covered for thefts and breakages.

[98elise]

Decky_Q said:

No it is not carriage of goods for hire ot reward.
Business cover is sufficient, your primary business is not delivering goods.

Agreed.

You're not delivering hire tools all day, you just happen to be hiring a tool you need to do your actual job.

No different to say giving a workmate a lift to site. You're not now a taxi service.

[Alextodrive]

ingenieur said:

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered. They have to insure their gear as they dole it out and people pay to rent it so they make sure they are covered for thefts and breakages.

Thanks for the reply.

Just to clarify, I'm not looking for cover on the tools. I actually have hired in equipment cover as a seperate policy entirely.

It's just the classification of vehicle insurance. It also has some bearing on whether or not I'd need to look into a good vehicle operators license, which is another rabbit hole I discovered and am rather confused about entirely.

[Dog Star]

Using that logic if I went down the local tool hire place and rented out a whacker plate I’d need to get some mad insurance cover.

In fact to take this to an extreme conclusion would you have needed carriage of goods cover if you’d rented a film off Blockbuster back in the day.

[Alextodrive]

Dog Star said:

Using that logic if I went down the local tool hire place and rented out a whacker plate I’d need to get some mad insurance cover.

In fact to take this to an extreme conclusion would you have needed carriage of goods cover if you’d rented a film off Blockbuster back in the day.

Assuming you were being paid for the work you did with the whacker plate and the client covered the cost of it, then while I can appreciate its a slightly far fetched idea that you'd be deemed to be carrying goods for hire, I've also learnt it doesnt pay to to be complacent when it comes to the decisions insurance companies will make on how they view things.

But I do also get your point taking it the extreme. I personally think the nuance and subtly of whether you're carrying your own goods or whether you'd be deemed to be carrying others for reward and hire is ultimately down to sensible interpretation by insurance companies rather than being black and white.

Appreciate everyones input today. Sounds like the logic I was erring on the side of, that it isnt reward for hire is resoundingly supported!

Edited by Alextodrive on Sunday 21st January 15:59

[Mr Tidy]

That's right, Business Hire or Reward cover is intended for people like couriers, haulage companies, removal firms, etc. not what you are doing.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

ingenieur said:

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered.

We're not discussing the cover on the actual equipment, but the use of the vehicle.

[OutInTheShed]

It may relate to the 'nature of your business' as declared to your insurer?

Business insurance for my car and motorbike used to be very cheap, the bike insurers only cared that I wasn't doing pizza delivery.
With my car insurance it was more sensitive to how I described my profession.
I got sensible answers talking to insurance companies about being an IT person who sometimes carried IT equipment in the car, whether it was mine or not. It got less sensible the more I talked about 'engineer' and 'prototypes'.
Half of them could never get their heads around my car being personal and my business being a limited company of which I was the director/shareholder.

For a laugh, ask them if your wife can borrow the car/van to move some stuff for her job.

[grumpy52]

Check that you have adequate cover for tools on your insurance.
I think you will find the wording of the cover will be something like Tools and equipment related to carrying out your business or trade .

[ingenieur]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ingenieur said:

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered.

We're not discussing the cover on the actual equipment, but the use of the vehicle.

Never the less... think about it from the perspective of the insurance industry. Often they are paying out for the theft of equipment so it's simply a question of where the fees are charged to cover the risk. The point is... not to the hirer. Therefore, by process of elimination you can see you'd not have to insure equipment you've hired while you are transporting it as the equipment is insured in a different way.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

ingenieur said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ingenieur said:

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered.

We're not discussing the cover on the actual equipment, but the use of the vehicle.

Never the less... think about it from the perspective of the insurance industry. Often they are paying out for the theft of equipment so it's simply a question of where the fees are charged to cover the risk. The point is... not to the hirer. Therefore, by process of elimination you can see you'd not have to insure equipment you've hired while you are transporting it as the equipment is insured in a different way.

It's completely irrelevant to this discussion. We're talking about the use of the vehicle. Who is covering the goods, or whether they are covered at all, is a different discussion.

[ingenieur]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ingenieur said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ingenieur said:

Also, companies who hire out tools to contractors 99% of the time insure the equipment they're renting out so that's where the risk is covered.

We're not discussing the cover on the actual equipment, but the use of the vehicle.

Never the less... think about it from the perspective of the insurance industry. Often they are paying out for the theft of equipment so it's simply a question of where the fees are charged to cover the risk. The point is... not to the hirer. Therefore, by process of elimination you can see you'd not have to insure equipment you've hired while you are transporting it as the equipment is insured in a different way.

It's completely irrelevant to this discussion. We're talking about the use of the vehicle. Who is covering the goods, or whether they are covered at all, is a different discussion.

It is relevant to the discussion because you may deduce from the fact the equipment would be insured otherwise that it wouldn't be necessary to insure it again by having some kind of elevated cover level for the vehicle / use of. It's how I would have worked it out if it were my question.

[MrBen.911]

ingenieur said:

Never the less... think about it from the perspective of the insurance industry. Often they are paying out for the theft of equipment so it's simply a question of where the fees are charged to cover the risk. The point is... not to the hirer. Therefore, by process of elimination you can see you'd not have to insure equipment you've hired while you are transporting it as the equipment is insured in a different way.

As Twig points out, this is irrelevant to the OP's question about vehicle insurance, but also you're not correct - a substantial proportion of plant hire to contractors is under CPA conditions or similar which require the hirer to insure under their own 'Hired in Plant' cover.

[ingenieur]

MrBen.911 said:

ingenieur said:

Never the less... think about it from the perspective of the insurance industry. Often they are paying out for the theft of equipment so it's simply a question of where the fees are charged to cover the risk. The point is... not to the hirer. Therefore, by process of elimination you can see you'd not have to insure equipment you've hired while you are transporting it as the equipment is insured in a different way.

As Twig points out, this is irrelevant to the OP's question about vehicle insurance, but also you're not correct - a substantial proportion of plant hire to contractors is under CPA conditions or similar which require the hirer to insure under their own 'Hired in Plant' cover.

A substantial proportion is not enough to say I am incorrect. I am at least a little bit correct... if this is how you want to add it up. My point isn't that the hire firm insures their kit but that the driver doesn't. Whether it is the hire firm or the construction company makes no difference to the point.

[MrBen.911]

ingenieur said:

A substantial proportion is not enough to say I am incorrect. I am at least a little bit correct... if this is how you want to add it up. My point isn't that the hire firm insures their kit but that the driver doesn't. Whether it is the hire firm or the construction company makes no difference to the point.

The driver in the case of the OP is the construction company.

The point of the OP was about vehicle insurance anyway.

But I'm sure you are a little bit correct, I just can't see how!

[TwigtheWonderkid]

ingenieur said:

A substantial proportion is not enough to say I am incorrect. I am at least a little bit correct... if this is how you want to add it up. My point isn't that the hire firm insures their kit but that the driver doesn't. Whether it is the hire firm or the construction company makes no difference to the point.

You're wrong. Let's suppose the OP is a builder, and has his van insured for being a builder. He extended that policy to cover all tools in the vehicle, whether his, lent to him or hired to him to do the building job. Then the company from where he hires his tools say "do you want to stop being a builder and be a self employed delivery driver, delivering and collecting tools to our customers who have hired them?" He says yes, and is now a delivery driver. He doesn't do any building at all. He has the tools insured whilst he's carrying them, but, the van insurance is not valid. Because he's using his van for the carriage of others goods for hire and reward (he's being paid to deliver and collect tools) and he hasn't got that use.

The insurance on the tools doesn't matter. The conversation is about the use of the vehicle.

[Alextodrive]

Piston head gang.

Appreciate all your answers and input on this.

Has reassured me my gut feeling and what felt to be the logical answer, is the consensus here too.