Van insurance groups and how they affect your insurance

18 Jun 2009

If you are a business looking to insure one or even a fleet of vehicles, then you want to find the most comprehensive cover and at a competitive price. One thing to take in to consideration when looking at how much your van insurance will cost is van insurance groups. 

Van insurance groups will have an effect on how much you will pay for your commercial vehicle cover. Insurers have 20 ratings groups, one being the lowest risk and 20 the highest. How a particular vehicle is judged to be within a certain van insurance group will depend on the level of risk associated with each type of van and any potential repair costs after an accident.

Another issue that can affect the premium is what your vehicle is classed as - is it a commercial vehicle or is it being used as a company car?

Let's start with some basic facts to note when looking for van insurance:

• If you use or ask a staff member to use a vehicle registered to your company then their own insurance or your private vehicle insurance may be invalid even if designated ‘any vehicle';
• If you use or ask a staff member to use a privately registered vehicle for business purposes you could easily again be invalidating their/your insurance as this may constitute business / commercial use.

Private vehicles - regular business and commercial use

Business and commercial use could include dropping materials off in your car on the way to your normal place of work, driving around visiting clients or patients, using a private vehicle for product or material deliveries or making regular frequent ‘business trips'.

If you're an employer, you also need to be careful about asking employees to drive their own or your private vehicle for business reasons. You could face certain legal liabilities in the event of an accident if you are seen as having insisted they use a private vehicle as part of their business duties without firstly having ensured that appropriate insurance was in place.

Commercial vehicles ‘proper'

The issues surrounding insurance for commercial vehicles are complex and too detailed to cover comprehensively here. The insurance you need will depend upon numerous factors including its usage, the nature of the vehicle, its weight and class, the estimated annual mileage, whether or not it carries goods and of what type, if it is used for paying passenger transportation and so on.

Guessing what form of insurance you need could at best prove to be expensive and at worst possibly disastrous if you need to claim only to find that your insurance does not cover the circumstances involved.  There may be no substitute for taking specialist advice.

So, if you don't know your van insurance groups or are not sure just what sort of van insurance policy will best suit your business, then the good news is that we can help.  We are specialist providers of commercial vehicle insurance that can offer expert help and guidance on what you may need. We can help you access some of the best deals possible for you even on those vehicles and situations where cover may be difficult to obtain. 

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