Taxi Driver Online

Ironically on the news today HMG raised the issue of spurious and speculative "compo" claims but consider this

I know a woman whose almost new range rover had the passenger door mirror wiped off by a turkish truck, she paid for the mirror, shes just turned down £2500 injury claim...

I know a taxi driver whose MPV got a (very) light tap on the boot, not a mark on his vehicle, hes had £2500 for injury and had a plated hire car costing the 3rd party £275 a DAY - for 7 days - whilst his was in the shop (for what god knows)

the problem is these were reportable accidents and details on the accident database get passed to "accident management companies" who know any claim will get a £2500+ offer just to cut down on paperwork and someones NCB will be lost and they get repaid that way....

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I'm a noob (London PCO, 39 years old, had one prang in 2010) and lowest quote I've got is 3100 for an 09 Caddy Maxi. Swinton was a laughable 6900

I think I'm pretty much exhausted in answering the same old questions repeatedly so looks like have to bite the bullet! Why don't they do a GoTaxiInsuranceCompare?!

Do the firm you work with not have a fleet policy that you could join?

One firm down here allows cars to join their fleet policy, subject to a bit of paperwork, and it has saved some drivers (younger ones and those with no NCB) thousands.

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IDFIMH

That's what happened in the Sheffield case,the council found all these vehicles insured trough the base on a fleet policy were not covered because the vehicles were not owned by the insured?

That's the bit of paperwork.

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IDFIMH

So wouldn't that amount to misrepresentation and thus fraud?

Anyway, I wouldn't pretend to know much about insurance, but I was under the impression that some fleet-style policies didn't necessitate common ownership of the vehicles?

Call it a 'group' policy rather than a 'fleet'

If the firm is on the vehicle license then they are part owners.

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IDFIMH

Interesting...sounds a bit like the taxi licensing scenario where the licensee purports to operate the vehicle but in essence it's someone else who's running it but all the paperwork is conducted through the licensee's name.

Or the self-drive limo scam which misrepresents the essence of what's going on.

Or indeed the insurance scenario where the vehicle is registered in the name of a parent but in fact the main driver is the teenager who actually owns the vehicle. Which is called something which I can't quite remember at the moment....where's 2jobs when you need him?

But it's legal, IMO, and saves some drivers thousands.

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IDFIMH

I disagree.

The driver is still the main driver, in some cases the only driver, and the driver is still the DVLA owner of the vehicle, as he paid for it, but the operator is on the vehicle license.

The insurance company that the firm I know of use is Westminster, and if they don't know about the insurance goings on in the cab trade, then I doubt anyone does.

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IDFIMH

Yes, I'm not saying the analogy with "fronting" of teenage drivers is precise, what I'm saying is that very often merely shuffling a bit of paperwork around isn't enough to change the substance of a transaction, as was demonstrated with likes of York taxi licences and the self-drive limo scam.

I'm certainly not saying I know anything about insurance law, but when you say the arrangement is merely "subject to a bit of paperwork" then that looks to me like a scenario purporting to be what it isn't ie the same principle was with teenage drivers.

The same but different, if you get my drift

Short answer for me is no. Therefore, looks like I just have to stomach it!

Spend a day on the phone, and it will be the most profitable day of the year for you.

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IDFIMH

The insurance trade press are still saying that with regard to motor insurance, for every £1.00 in premium they collect they pay out £1.20 in claims. I had an email from one of our clients fleet insurer saying they had been advised of a claim by a 3rd party ressulting in an injury. Turns out driver touched rear of car in front at about 2mph. Not damage to vehicles and no injury revealed at scene. Guess what! I think the profits must come from PPI or the like.

So, there is no "go compare" as such but do try www.quotiva.co.uk. When you look at it the concept is explained well. We get a lot of business off it and for us it works well because a broker can "filter out" the type of enquiries he/she doesn't want. e.g. LA, postcode, age etc. What it means is that when you do log your details, the responses you get will be from brokers that think they may have a competitive premium for your circumstances. Your enquiry will only be sent to a maximum of 5 brokers and to be honest, that will cover most insurance companies currently quoting for taxis.

The "adding your vehicle to a fleet policy" is pretty much dead in the water now. NIG and Equity used to run a lot of these types of deals, typically the policy was taken out by the taxi office and cars were added and deleted as drivers moved about. I believe Motorcade using Haven Insurance may still have something in London/PCO though for minicabs. To my knowledge these others have now all been withdrawn due to catastrophic losses. A lot of the cover was TPO and in the event of a claim, drivers weren't bothering to report incidents cos they couldn't claim their own damage and insurers were having to cough up TP damages as they had no information to defend with.

In any case, there is the Common Law matter of "Insurable Interest". Goes back hundreds of years and for full details, Google it. Brief summary, you cannot insure something you do not own or at least have a fanancial stake in. For example, if I insure my friends car in my name and it is written off, who incures the loss? Not me as policyholder cos it ain't my car. Therefore no insurable interest therefore no claim/payout. In fairness however Tradex/Westminster will do this for an additional premium.

We had a Turkish client who couldn't get credit. His girlfriend to out HP on a new E7 so it had to be registered in her name and the finance was in her name. Not having a great command of English, the guy insured it in his name and said he owned it cos he was paying the monthly instalments to GF. He stuffed it into a tree, wrote it off and insurers refused to pay as no insurabele interest.

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Nobody told me to use my initiative. To err is human to arr is pirate.

your wish is my command


http://www.gotaxicompare.com