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Chap from Cornwall sent this to info@

Alex

Hi all,

I am a taxi owner from Truro in Cornwall.

Has anyone ever suggested a change in the way taxis and drivers are insured and does anyone agree with my proposal, outlined below?

It is my belief that there should be a "core" policy taken out by the owner, for the vehicle and owner only.

Then, rather than having named drivers on the owners policy, each individual driver should carry his or her own "satellite" policy which insures them as a commercial driver (it could be shown on their badge and could even be made a condition of getting a badge). This policy would then be linked to the owners policy but not be part of it and the "insurance risk" would be on the attached policy when that particular driver is operating the vehicle. In the event of a drivers fault incident, the claim would be taken from the drivers insurance and not the owners insurance. The driver would then be the one who would pay increased premiums. The owners policy would be unaffected.

In these days of advanced electronics you could probably do it with a card and some kind of link to the meter for added security, but even without that it should be easy for large companies to link policies over the phone or by email or android (there could be a clocking on, clocking off app). With newer vehicles it could be arranged so that the car cannot be started without a valid insurance card being registered. (or even on older one's a card reader could be built into the ignition)

The advantages to this are many, especially in terms of road safety, accountability and cash-flow.

Because the driver is carrying the risk on his own insurance he is likely to be more careful when driving someone else's vehicle. With an immediately obvious benefit to road safety.

Any poor drivers will soon price themselves out of the business (another benefit to road safety) because they will pay for their own mistakes, with increased premiums, and carry their accident history with them on their insurance policy/card/badge. It will be their premiums that become astronomical and not those of the employer and if the costs become unaffordable they will no longer be driving.

The owners of taxis will have greater security because their insurance costs will not be affected by drivers mistakes, they will only pay for their own mistakes and not be left with massive insurance increases because of a careless driver, who has probably moved on to another operator who may well be unaware of that drivers history.

If a bad driver moves on, the new employer will be made aware of the drivers history when they take the policy details/card/badge and the policy link is attempted. This will be a useful vetting tool and enable the taxi owner to ensure that only careful drivers can apply.

Good drivers will also benefit because, as the industry becomes safer by weeding out the bad ones, insurance premiums in general will reduce, saving everybody money.

Small businesses will not go to the wall because of "one bad apple" making their business uneconomical. which as well as being good for the owners, also gives drivers more choice of who they work for.

This type of policy could be used across the board, not just for taxis but for any business where a driver is operating a vehicle on someone else's behalf. Good drivers need not fear it because their premiums will be low and stay low, some operators may cover the cost as an incentive to good drivers to work for them. Obviously, they would not apply that incentive to anyone who had a rated policy and again this would remove an element of risk from the industry, reducing premiums on the average for everybody.

I would be interested to know what anyone else thinks about this. I have discussed it with other owners in the Truro Taxi Association and had a generally favourable response.

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