If your motor trade business is responsible for moving a customer’s vehicle from one destination to another, whether as a car jockey or a chauffeur who drives a customer’s own vehicle to their home, you will need either Tradex’s get me home service insurance or a car jockey insurance policy.
Both of these insurance types allow you to drive other people’s vehicles but are quite distinct in the type of business areas that are covered.
Get Me Home Service Insurance
Get me home service insurance is a policy specifically designed to cover you when driving a customer’s vehicle to get them to their home destination. The driver will generally keep a fold up scooter in the boot for them to be able to reach their onward journey.
The get me home service insurance policy offers full insurance cover for new ventures, employees and sole traders. It includes liability cover for a variety of vehicles including prestige cars as well as the motorbike or moped that folds aways into the boot.
Car Jockey Insurance
Alternatively, car jockey insurance lets a policyholder drive a customer’s vehicle for parking, storage or removal within a specified radius. This includes airports, hotels and ferry terminals, covering employees who need to move a customer’s vehicle that has been left under their control.
Car jockey insurance is most often used by vehicle businesses at airport or ferry terminal carparks, where cars are left for hours, days or even weeks. Car jockeying insurance is also suitable for clubs, restaurants, convention centres, hotels, festivals, concerts and even wedding parkers.
Car jockey insurance protects against the specific risks of these types of businesses, allowing people to drive vehicles of diverse types, engine sizes and values.
A car jockeys business may include:
- Airport parking
- Ferry terminal parking
- Hotel, nightclub, restaurant or casino parking that offer their customers a valet parking service
- Any event companies that offer parking services, for example, concerts, weddings and festivals
‘Get me home service’ insurance will also give full coverage to chauffeurs and other drivers, which can include:
- Self-employed drivers
- A contracted driver for a company
- Drivers with one or more vehicles of different engine sizes, values and specifications which can include prestige vehicles (single vehicles or a fleet)
- Motorbikes or mopeds that can collapse in the boot
Motor Trade Insurance for Car Jockeying and Get Me Home Businesses
When setting up a car jockeying or other business where you may be driving or moving other people’s vehicles to get them home, such as a wedding chauffeur or a self-employed driver, you will need road risk insurance as an absolute minimum so you are insured to drive any customer’s cars while moving, driving or parking them.
However, the minimum of road risk insurance will not be enough to cover all of the wide range of other insurance risks you will face as a car jockey or get me home driver. Without sufficient service insurance, you could be facing hefty compensation payments and even legal fees if someone were to make a claim against your business as a result of something that happens through you, or an employee’s, actions.
Which Type of Insurance Do I Need?
Some types of insurance for a car jockey, chauffeur or self-employed driver are a legal requirement, including road risks. Other parts of a motor trade insurance policy are often recommended to prevent any monetary loss if something were to go wrong and you need to make a pay out or, worse still, end up in court.
Road risks insurance will enable you to drive other people’s cars, whether that is just a short distance to park them or collecting from a show room and driving at distance. Chauffeurs and self-employed drivers will also need a road risks insurance policy as a private vehicle licence will not cover you to drive other people’s vehicles to their home.
You need to have insurance to drive other people’s vehicles, even if you are only moving them a short distance. Legally, car jockey and other driving businesses must have a ‘third party only’ road risk policy at the very least.
Additional protection could be found with a third-party, fire and theft policy, but to receive the best cover possible for your business, it is worth paying a slightly higher premium and choosing comprehensive insurance.
As an overview, these are the two road risk insurance choices and what they cover:
- Third-party only: this provides the minimum level of cover. As a car jockey or driver, it is completely legal to take out third-party road risk insurance, but it will only cover you for injuries to other people or damage to their property. This will not cover you for the vehicle you are driving, even if this is just a client’s car that you are in the process of parking for them. In the event of an accident, you would not be charged for fixing the damage to the other vehicle involved but you would be deemed financially responsible for the car you had been parking or driving.
- Comprehensive: also known as ‘fully comprehensive’, this is the most extensive, and therefore the most expensive, of all the options. It provides everything that third party and third-party fire and theft offers but in addition you will be fully covered for the car you are driving together with cars in your care and those owned by your business in a road accident.
Despite the possibility you will only be taking short journeys or just parking, this does not mean that there is not the potential for accidents to happen. As you may be moving or driving some extremely high value, performance or classic cars under your care, you need to make sure you have adequate cover in place should the worst happen.
A fully comprehensive policy will cover you for most collisions, including at-fault. For example, if you were to accidentally crash or scrape a vehicle you are parking, then it would be covered by the policy. Failure to have sufficient road risks insurance cover could lead to you being out of pocket, particularly if you are moving or driving high-end vehicles.
What Level of Cover Do I Need?
Tradex’s ‘get me home service’ insurance or car jockey insurance can help to protect your business and income from any monetary loss and keep your business functioning smoothly.
Together with road risks, public and employers’ liability insurance, a car jockey or driver policy may also include cover for offices and equipment, money, business interruption and theft, as well as businesses with multiple sites or compounds.
Areas of insurance to consider for your parking, valet, chauffeur or taxi driving business include:
- Flexible customer vehicle indemnity limits
- Static parking risks
- Multiple premises
- Specified driver, any authorised driver and any employee policies
- Public and employers’ liability insurance
- Office contents and equipment
- Tool cover
- Multiple driver cover
- Possible cover for drivers with convictions and claims
- Tradex also includes the ‘bonus booster’ which offers those with no bonus a six-month policy to accrue a year’s no claims and subsequently use it on a full-term policy, ideal for younger drivers
- Business interruption insurance
Employers’ liability
If you have any employees (even casual or part-time workers), you will need to have employers’ liability insurance by law. It can pay compensation to employees if they are injured at work or become sick because of the work they’re doing, saving you a significant amount of money in the long-term.
If you do employ anyone, you will legally need at least £5 million worth of cover. Anyone who needs employers’ liability but doesn’t have it could face severe penalties. If you employ staff but are not sufficiently covered, you might be facing fines of up to £2,500 for every day until you put the appropriate insurance cover in place.
Public liability
Public liability insurance protects your business against compensation claims made by a member of the public due to injuries to themselves or damage to their property as a result of the actions taken by your business.
If you are a car park jockey or drive other people’s vehicles to their home, you are always going to be at a higher risk of claims. If you or one of your jockeys or drivers were to hit somebody and they were injured or killed as a result, you could end up with a very serious and expensive claim being filed against your business.
The best way to ensure you are covered should the worse happen, is to have public liability insurance included in your policy.
If a claim does go to court and you are ordered to pay compensation, your liability insurance policy will cover the full amount which could include financial reimbursement to replace someone’s property or claims for medical bills, pain and suffering or lost income. It is likely you will also be asked to pay the other side’s legal fees too, and your insurance policy will cover that as well.
These types of claims can be extremely costly, running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. When choosing a good public liability insurance policy, make sure that it covers you for at least a million pounds to avoid being out of pocket.
Static parking risk
This type of insurance cover is very prevalent for a car jockey. If your business focusses on parking cars, you will probably want to consider taking out insurance cover to provide extra protection for those vehicles parked under your care. This will not only give you security knowing your business is covered but also your clients will have peace of mind knowing their vehicles are protected should anything go wrong.
Business premises cover
If you run your business out of an office, it may be beneficial to have some form of business premises insurance to provide cover for the building as well as permanent fixtures and fittings in the event of vandalism, fire or a flood. You will also need to insure any office technical equipment like computers, printers and phones as well as furniture and any money that may be kept on site.
Business interruption insurance
It is difficult to know just what is round the corner and business interruption insurance will cover you for loss of income during periods when you cannot carry out business as usual due to an unexpected event such as a sudden illness, an accident or even hospitalisation.
Indemnity Insurance vs Public Liability
Many people become confused when they look at both indemnity and public liability insurance. The fact is these two are two very distinct types of cover, each having its own importance. The likelihood is that you will need both professional indemnity and public liability insurance for your business.
Professional indemnity insurance protects you from claims when a client undergoes financial loss because of your negligence or mistake.
Public liability insurance protects you from a person’s claims you caused some form of physical damage to themselves or their property.
Basically, professional indemnity insurance will cover the compensations costs and legal fees your company may need to pay if someone accuses you of negligence and makes a claim against your business. As an example, you gave someone professional advice which caused them to suffer some sort of reputational damage or even loss of money.
What Does Professional Indemnity Insurance Cover?
Professional indemnity insurance cover defends you against claims of:
Breach of professional duty or negligence: if you make a mistake in your work or give incorrect advice.
Dishonest, fraudulent or malicious act or omission of any former or present employee: this includes employees or subcontractors withholding information from your clients as well as sharing information about your client that you were not meant to.
Libel or slander: writing or saying statements that damage a client’s reputation.
Breach of confidentiality: when confidential data or information is accidentally disclosed to a third party without the client's consent such as sending it to the wrong person by mistake.
Infringing intellectual property rights: such as trademarks and copyright.
Loss of, or damage to, documents: either paper or digital
Nobody is perfect in business and everyone makes mistakes at some time. In addition, it may not be you but others that make mistakes on your behalf, such as a contractor or supplier who doesn’t deliver as promised.
Even if you are certain you haven’t done anything wrong, you will still need to pay to defend yourself in court, which means having the right indemnity in place so you are covered for all legal costs.
In most cases, you will be able to agree an indemnity level with your insurer based around your particular needs. As a car jockey and chauffeuring business can mean you are dealing with a variety of vehicles on a daily basis, flexible indemnity is sometimes an option because the value of vehicles under your care may vary from one day to another.
When calculating how much professional indemnity insurance you need, keep in mind that it is almost impossible to be exact, especially as a car jockey. In general, think about the worst mistake you could make and how much it will likely cost you to put it right again including how much compensation you may have to pay your client.
Reducing the Cost of Your Motor Trade Insurance
Whilst it is essential to protect yourself for the risks you face, it is also important to try and keep your costs low, particularly when starting out in business. To help to reduce the cost of your policy, you can:
Pay for your policy annually: if you can afford to, paying for your policy in one lump sum rather than paying if off on a monthly basis can help to reduce the cost of your insurance policy significantly.
Select mature drivers: ensure named drivers on your road risk policy are 25 years old or over with significant driving experience and a clean driving record with no penalty points or endorsements on their licence. If you can demonstrate that your named drivers are safe and responsible behind the wheel, your insurance broker will typically offer you a more competitive deal.
Reduce the potential risks of accidents and liability claims: clearly signpost parking lots to direct the flow of traffic and have marked spaces in parking bays to help prevent scrapes and vehicle dents. Undertake regular risk assessments for any new activities.
Ensure parking lots or garage space are secure: try to select your business premises to be based in areas with a low crime rate. Ensure high security fences, adequate and maintained CCTV, locked, secure gates and flood lights to lower any risk of crime and theft and demonstrate a lower risk to help your insurance broker keep your premiums at a lower level.
Choosing the right level of insurance for your business at an affordable price can be a challenge. At Tradex, we have decades of experience within the motor trade insurance industry and specialisms in the taxi, car jockey and chauffeuring industries to help tailor a policy to exactly what you need.
Whether you are operating full-time or part-time, run a large business or small, chauffeur a variety of cars or have just a single employer, it is important to choose a broker with the flexibility to tailor an insurance policy that reflects your business and will give you the greatest protection for the best possible budget.