Commuting according to insurer

[pete]

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-13439239/My-car-insurer-refused-claim-policy-does-not-cover-commuting-do.html

The things insurance companies do to get out of paying

[Bazza 907]

She got a lower insurance premium because she said she didn't do any commuting. She had an accident whilst commuting and claims it's all unfair that the insurance company won't pay.

If the insurer did pay out on occasions like this we'd all end up paying higher insurance premiums. Mine's high enough already..   

[JimmytheTurbo]

Yea sounds like she was commuting to me. Driving home after work. Commuting to me.

[ChrisJ]

I'd say commuting - but Hastings only asks

So unless she works at the railways station, she might have a get out.

When I've applied for insurance I have seen the question say something like "including to and from the railway station".

ETA: read the whole article, and it looks like she has got away with it, and Hastings are going to clarify their wording.

[pete]

Yes Hastings wording was misleading and they have now changed their wording 

[ChrisJ]

They haven't yet - screenshot is from their Quote

[pete]

1 hour ago, Bazza 907 said:

She got a lower insurance premium because she said she didn't do any commuting. She had an accident whilst commuting and claims it's all unfair that the insurance company won't pay.

If the insurer did pay out on occasions like this we'd all end up paying higher insurance premiums. Mine's high enough already..   

The point here Barry is that insurers are very precise in their wording and the Hastings wording wasn't 

[Bazza 907]

4 minutes ago, pete said:

The point here Barry is that insurers are very precise in their wording and the Hastings wording wasn't 

Sorry Pete but the Hastings wording is clear/precise and if it wasn't clear to her she could/should have asked 

She was travelling from her one permanent place of work. Her travelling included a rail journey and a car journey.

She needed SDP and Commuting cover but got a cheaper premium because she decided not to include commuting cover

 

[pete]

Others are very specific 

[Dan E]

So @Bazza 907 genuine question, I have just dropped my wife off to the station, on her way to work, in her car which is SD&P she never uses it to go to the station but due to my car having a flat tyre I used hers, so what's the situation there?

Also say she decided, that on her Friday off, to use the car to meet friends in london but drove to the station! Its a minefield really isn't it 

[Escape]

I'm with @Bazza 907 on this. Insurance companies will do anything they can to get out of paying (ask me how I know after the Workshop burned down...), but in this case the driver chose not to include commuting to get a lower premium, and then still used the car for commuting. Even if only for part of the voyage, it was still being used to get to and from her workplace. Looking for loopholes in the wording does not alter the base fact. So a very wrong signal to pay her imho, as this means others who have in good faith paid extra to include commuting have in fact overpaid for the same cover.

As for dropping someone off @Dan E, I'd say that is not commuting as the purpose of your trip was not to get to or from a workplace. Belgian law (for once) has made this clear. We have a similar clause that cars registered as an historic vehicle can not be used to get to or from a place of work or study or used for any other business or professional means. The later including interventions and if interpreted strictly, you can't even take your historic vehicle shopping if some of the products you buy will be used for your business (for example buying an oil filter to sell it on to a customer is not allowed, if you use the filter yourself there is no problem). But, and this is the important part, offering someone a ride in an historic vehicle as part of their commute to work, school or business stuff is allowed, as the limitation only applies to the driver (primary user on that trip). If you had let your wife drive to the station and then taken her car back, it would have been dubious at best. But as it was, you were driving but not commuting, she was commuting but not a passenger so not limited by the insurance policy. Maybe the reasoning behind this (besides obvious clarity) is that you can not be expected to know what your passenger(s) do after or before they get into your car.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Blimey, so if driving your car from your house to the local commuter town railway station, to leave it there all day whilst you commute to work and back on the commuter train, prior to driving your car back home isn’t commuting, then what is?

[exeterjeep]

My view is that if you are employed (or even self employed)  and you use your car in any part of a journey to get to work then you should have commuting on your policy, so always had that until I retired. 

 

 

[mdw]

To be fair it doesn't cost that much more just to go full business use. Then there's no wriggle out.

[Bazza 907]

14 minutes ago, mdw said:

To be fair it doesn't cost that much more just to go full business use. Then there's no wriggle out.

@mdw Costs even less to just include commuting..

2 hours ago, Dan E said:

So @Bazza 907 genuine question, I have just dropped my wife off to the station, on her way to work, in her car which is SD&P she never uses it to go to the station but due to my car having a flat tyre I used hers, so what's the situation there?

@Dan E You were using her car for "Domestic i.e. D in SDP" purposes as you/the car was not being used for commuting yourself. If she had been driving then clearly it would have been commuting.

2 hours ago, Dan E said:

Also say she decided, that on her Friday off, to use the car to meet friends in london but drove to the station! Its a minefield really isn't it 

If she's not going to the office to meet her friends (i.e. she meets them in a pub) then she's not going to her permanent place of work so she's not commuting. If she goes to meet them in the office, before going to the pub, then I agree it's more of a grey area but I think she's not commuting as she is using the car for Pleasure (the P in SDP).

 

With all these things it's best to check with your insurer if in any doubt

 

[NG5]

45 minutes ago, exeterjeep said:

My view is that if you are employed (or even self employed)  and you use your car in any part of a journey to get to work then you should have commuting on your policy, so always had that until I retired. 

Personally I actually agree with you, but that is not necessarily the Law. I'm not a lawyer, but studied contract law and reading/commenting on contracts was part of my day job. Contract law is full of nuances and ultimately depends on what the Judge thinks. But in general terms Judges don't like vague terms, particularly when there is a big difference in the power of the parties, such as here, big corporation v ordinary individual where they will tend to side with the weaker party. The fact is here "commuting to work" is not clearly defined, it can and was read buy different parties as "commuting the whole journey to work", or "commuting the whole or part of the journey to work". The fact that other major insurers in their wording were far more specific made the outcome almost inevitable.

BTW I always included commuting in my policy and quite a few times added business use. The extra premium for business use was always £0. Now retired so neither applies 🙂

[NG5]

3 hours ago, Dan E said:

So @Bazza 907 genuine question, I have just dropped my wife off to the station, on her way to work, in her car which is SD&P she never uses it to go to the station but due to my car having a flat tyre I used hers, so what's the situation there?

If it's a joint policy, you are limited to the same SDP when driving so you are covered as YOU are not commuting

 

Edited May 23 by NG5
miss read the question and wrote a load of rubbish

[Gjk]

When I insured my daily I was asked, will the vehicle be used to travel to a permanent place of work (commute) and also was the vehicle to be used for business use. Ticked yes for the first and no for the second. Seemed pretty straight forward to me.

[ChrisJ]

My Mazda, Excel & Esprit all have commuting on them. Wife's car has business use for the odd occasion she goes and does some paid hockey coaching. My daughter (19 < 1 year licence) has Business use as she is working at a prep school and needs to travel to different sites.

All of these added very little (if anything) to the base premium - even my daughter's, in fact we got a refund when we moved her location to the prep school in Northampton rather than home in Hertfordshire.

Her renewal in July is going to be interesting as she is going to the USA for university, but will be back for almost 2 months over Christmas and 3 months in the summer. PLUS going to need to add our son as a learner. I'll be speaking to a broker for this.

[Barrykearley]

My Ex had a payout for the family car - she wrapped it round a tree whilst nearly twice the Drink drive limit and was banned for 15months. Dont think the insurance company ever asked for the £24k back🤪

[C8RKH]

16 hours ago, Bazza 907 said:

Sorry Pete but the Hastings wording is clear/precise and if it wasn't clear to her she could/should have asked 

Sorry, but I think you are 100% wrong.

She was not travelling to, or from, her "place of work" in the car when the accident happened. She was travelling from, the railway station after getting off a train. It seems that both Hastings and others agree that their interpretation was wrong also, hence they have re-looked at, decided to cover, and then stated they will change their wording to avoid any future ambiguity.

[exeterjeep]

46 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

Sorry, but I think you are 100% wrong.

So what if I lived say 20 miles from my office/work, drove 10 miles to get a bus as the bus was exempt from paying congestion charges etc (so not driving/parking my car in a ULEZ ) , how much of my car / bus combination would you say/ allow was not commuting.  

[NG5]

19 minutes ago, exeterjeep said:

how much of my car / bus combination would you say/ allow was not commuting

Ultimately it's down to the man on the Clapham omnibus.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus

What is reasonable.

[C8RKH]

55 minutes ago, exeterjeep said:

So what if I lived say 20 miles from my office/work, drove 10 miles to get a bus as the bus was exempt from paying congestion charges etc (so not driving/parking my car in a ULEZ ) , how much of my car / bus combination would you say/ allow was not commuting.  

I would say it depends, if it says "commuting to your permanent place of work" then I would say none of it, as you were not driving to your place of work, but somewhere else.

I know it's a very grey area, so unless it is clear and unambiguous then I would say the insurer would need to pay.

Take my example. I was "commuting to London" for a while which was my permanent place of work. I drove to the airport. Left my car there for four, sometimes 5, days, as I got the plane to London. I would not say that I used my car to "commute to my place of work".

Now, in my defence, I have ALWAYS insured my cars for SD&P and Business use. The impact on my premium, even on the Evora, has been negligible and I was happy to pay it to avoid any hassles or ambiguity with the insurance company. For the sake of an extra £30-40 a year, to me, it was worth it. But then others, perfectly innocently, might have thought they did not need it. The onus needs to be on the Insurance company to word their policies in a clear, unambiguous way. So, "you are not covered to commute, in full or in part, to your place of work" would have done it, in my humble opinion. If Insurance companies want to be "clever" and live in the grey, then the law needs to fall down on the side of the consumer who does not have legal access or support etc. Just my humble opinion as always.

[Escape]

@C8RKH so you'd consider driving to a railway station (or airport or whatever) as part of your trip to work as 'social driving', and the commute only starts after you parked your car? Unless you park it at your workplace, then all of a sudden the entire trip is a commute? What if I were to park my car 1 mile from home and walked there before driving to work? I haven't covered the entire distance by car, so I'm not driving to commute?

I fully agree it should (and easily could) have been specified more clearly in the wording, but by all intents and purposes the reason for driving the car in all of the above examples is to get to and from work. So requires the appropriate insewerants (Pratchett 😉 ). Otherwise you're willfully looking for loopholes just to save a few pence.

What if the situation was reversed? Over here, most companies have a policy that if something happens to you on your way to or from work, it counts as a work related accident and you're entitled to the same benefits as for an accident during work. It does state that you need to take the most reasonable route to and from home. So a detour to visit friends or go shopping is not covered.
If you argue driving to or from a station is not commuting, by the same logic if something happens on that drive it would not be work related and you are not entitled to any of the benefits. Surely no one would accept that.