As a business, there will be a minimum of three main types of insurance that you will need to know about. An insurance that will relate to your vehicle or vehicles, liability insurance that covers employees and the public, and business interruption insurance, which is more optional, but will offer compensation should there be times when unfortunate events prevent you from trading. The last two will often be included with a commercial combined policy.
By looking into websites like onesureinsurance.co.uk/van-insurance, you can check out van insurance and other business insurance options.
Vehicle Insurance
The usual type of vehicle insurance for businesses will be van insurance. This can provide damage cover to a company’s van in the event of an accident as well as satisfy the legal requirement of needing insurance cover for road use. Where comprehensive cover is purchased, fire and theft cover will automatically be included.
Otherwise, it is a choice of whether to just have the third-party element insured. Extra cover can be purchased which will cover breakdowns, legal expenses, key replacement, and hire cars. Personal accident cover can also be obtained.
Another requirement that you are likely to have as a business will be that you want many different drivers to drive your one vehicle, perhaps on a shift basis. This can be easily arranged by having Any Driver van insurance.
Liability Insurance
Liability insurance comes in two parts: employer’s liability and public liability, which will often be a part of a commercial combined policy. Other types of liabilities can also be covered, depending on what type of business you have.
In the UK, it is compulsory, except in exceptional circumstances, that employers have an employer’s liability insurance. The act which enforces this is the Employer’s Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. UK Employers must have at least £5 million of employer’s liability cover to stay within the law. This will be more depending on a business’s activities. It covers a company should an employee end up injured or become ill as a result of working for the company. Insurers, in this instance, will pay compensation.
Public liability insurance will cover a company for any compensation that would be due if a member of the public is injured due to the actions of one of their employees, or an unfortunate event linked to the company’s activities. This could relate to bad luck, negligence, poor or dangerous working practices, or generally not following health and safety rules.
Public liability insurance is not a legal requirement but customers that a company works for can insist on it. So, it is something that allows many businesses to trade and function. It is also financial protection for a company as a large claim could see a small company, in particular, go bankrupt when they cannot afford to pay the compensation.
Business Interruption Insurance
There may be times, outside of a company’s control, when they are unable to trade. This is where business interruption insurance comes into its own. It will cover a company for any loss of income during periods where the business cannot continue as normal due to an unexpected event. The purpose of the cover is to put businesses back into the same position, from a trading point of view, that they were in before the unfortunate event occurred.
An example of business interruption insurance being actioned might be if business premises became flooded due to freak weather conditions or an employee accidentally leaving a piece of equipment on overnight that set the property on fire and caused considerable damage. Both events would mean that a business would temporarily be unable to trade until the damage was fixed.
This could be a considerable amount of time and much potential income could be lost. If the event was not insured against, it could be responsible for a company going out of business in the long term because of not being able to financially sustain the loss. Thankfully, insurers can have this covered for businesses.
In conclusion, insurers have thought of every business requirement when it comes to covering a business for every eventuality that might see it out of pocket. A part of insurance is the compulsory element required by law but the rest of it is about protecting businesses from potential expenses that they cannot afford.
So, think about who can provide you with the most competitive van insurance quotation and then the other types of insurance cover that are on offer for your business that will ensure compliance with the law and survival.
