Insurance commuting question
Discussion
I'm just looking at my insurance renewal and wondering about the social, domestic, please and commuting and got thinking.
As I'm home based, and have to go into the office once in a blue moon (like 3 times in the last year), I was wondering whether i'd need to add commuting to my insurance. I've read online some say yes, some say no.
My work contract states home based, but travel to office may be required as required.
Any insurance boffins in here who can give a definitive answer?
As I'm home based, and have to go into the office once in a blue moon (like 3 times in the last year), I was wondering whether i'd need to add commuting to my insurance. I've read online some say yes, some say no.
My work contract states home based, but travel to office may be required as required.
Any insurance boffins in here who can give a definitive answer?
Strangely however, some insurers are remarkably lenient on the subject of ‘commuting’. I dealt with a job a while back whereby a lad had driven to his workplace, then picked up a load of co workers to work at a different workplace. Crashing spectacularly on the way. Insurers classed this as commuting, amazingly.
Blanchimont said:
As I'm home based, and have to go into the office once in a blue moon (like 3 times in the last year), I was wondering whether i'd need to add commuting to my insurance. I've read online some say yes, some say no.
My work contract states home based, but travel to office may be required as required.
If you're home based, the office is a different site and not your usual place of work. Not really any different to if you worked in one office but had to occasionally visit a different one.My work contract states home based, but travel to office may be required as required.
Just add 1000 miles of business cover (assuming this would cover it) and you're sorted. It'll probably cost virtually nothing.
TownIdiot said:
Commuting is traveling to and from a place of work on a regular basis. Some people will try and argue about what regular means
It's because people argue about what regular means that insurers don't use it. Words like regular and occasional are avoided like the plague. Haley's comet is regular, once every 76 years.Most insurers define commuting as using your car to go to a single place of work. If you're unemployed or retired, you definitely don't need it. If you commute once a year, you do.
Unfortunately it'll depend on the insurer and you'd need to ask them. The term regular may be avoided or at very least subjective to the insurer.
I asked almost this exact question after COVID for a once per month, into the office. When I was with Admiral, they said it didn't need to be added and would still be covered because it was so infrequent, but when I changed, AXA said I needed commuting on the policy.
I asked almost this exact question after COVID for a once per month, into the office. When I was with Admiral, they said it didn't need to be added and would still be covered because it was so infrequent, but when I changed, AXA said I needed commuting on the policy.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
TownIdiot said:
Commuting is traveling to and from a place of work on a regular basis. Some people will try and argue about what regular means
It's because people argue about what regular means that insurers don't use it. Words like regular and occasional are avoided like the plague. Haley's comet is regular, once every 76 years.Most insurers define commuting as using your car to go to a single place of work. If you're unemployed or retired, you definitely don't need it. If you commute once a year, you do.
However in reality it's travel for the purposes of work as the permanent place of work is home. I have never had to test this in an actual real world claim situation but I would recommend the purchase of class one business cover, if I had to. Or if I thought the person was a good liar I would tell them to say they were going to visit their mate. But that would be frowned upon.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
It's because people argue about what regular means that insurers don't use it. Words like regular and occasional are avoided like the plague. Haley's comet is regular, once every 76 years.
Most insurers define commuting as using your car to go to a single place of work. If you're unemployed or retired, you definitely don't need it. If you commute once a year, you do.
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but there are a couple of scenarios that I've experienced and I've often wondered how they would be viewed.Most insurers define commuting as using your car to go to a single place of work. If you're unemployed or retired, you definitely don't need it. If you commute once a year, you do.
Driving to work at considerable inconvenience (takes much longer than the train) because you're going somewhere inaccessible by public transport straight after work and you need to be able to get there and get home again afterwards.
Driving to collect something specialised and bulky (impossible to hand carry on public transport) in your car and then continuing on to work because it's quite close by. Then driving home with said item at the end of the working day.
In both cases the fact that you're taking your car to work could be deemed as incidental to the use of the car. However, I have no idea if it would be viewed that way. I am also very aware that it's not worth worrying about because adding commuting to a policy costs very little, if anything.
omniflow said:
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but there are a couple of scenarios that I've experienced and I've often wondered how they would be viewed.
Driving to work at considerable inconvenience (takes much longer than the train) because you're going somewhere inaccessible by public transport straight after work and you need to be able to get there and get home again afterwards.
Driving to collect something specialised and bulky (impossible to hand carry on public transport) in your car and then continuing on to work because it's quite close by. Then driving home with said item at the end of the working day.
In both cases the fact that you're taking your car to work could be deemed as incidental to the use of the car. However, I have no idea if it would be viewed that way. I am also very aware that it's not worth worrying about because adding commuting to a policy costs very little, if anything.
Driving to collect the item is not commuting.Driving to work at considerable inconvenience (takes much longer than the train) because you're going somewhere inaccessible by public transport straight after work and you need to be able to get there and get home again afterwards.
Driving to collect something specialised and bulky (impossible to hand carry on public transport) in your car and then continuing on to work because it's quite close by. Then driving home with said item at the end of the working day.
In both cases the fact that you're taking your car to work could be deemed as incidental to the use of the car. However, I have no idea if it would be viewed that way. I am also very aware that it's not worth worrying about because adding commuting to a policy costs very little, if anything.
Driving after collection to the office is not commuting.
Driving home from your place of work with the item is commuting.
You would need class one business use to cover the top 2.
Certainly a point of contention for me. The last two years I've gone without the commuting tax and taken SDP only.
The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
Rick101 said:
Certainly a point of contention for me. The last two years I've gone without the commuting tax and taken SDP only.
The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
If you mash it up on a Sunday morning drive to work then it won't seem like much of tax. The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
It's possible to build in all the scenarios but it's not really economically viable so lots of generalisations are used. Some you win, some you lose.
Maybe a telemarics insurer will crack it one day.
Rick101 said:
Certainly a point of contention for me. The last two years I've gone without the commuting tax and taken SDP only.
The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
But you could say that about every piece of insurance data?The furstration is that despite being told the insurers and actuaries are especially clever and have miles and miles of data, in many cases it seems an extra blunt sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The question is so open ended as they usually are, and does noting to identify actual risk. It's simply a tick box, commuting? Okay that's an extra X%.
I absolutely agree that a commuter may be a higher risk but it doesn't take into account anything about whether it's 2 mile up the road twice a year, or a 100 mile round trip 6 days a week. Dependant on your work, it may not even be in the usual commuting rush hour. When I go to work 0530 on a Sunday morning It's unusual to even see a vehicle on the road.
I'm 65, that's a fact. But, am I more or less doddery than the next 65 year old? The data just says I'm 65. (I wish it would say less
)If you do something once, then you've done it.
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