For any tradesman their van is an essential part of their business so insuring that this essential part is insured properly, but what is the right kind of insurance for your businesses.
Depending on what type of van you own and the value of it is a large factor to what type of van insurance you need. If you run a small operation you may only have a small van that is not worth a lot of money. Anything worth under a thousand pounds it is advisable to get 3rd party insurance. This means that you are covered for anyone you crash into but you can't claim for your own vehicle if you were at fault. This is the legal minimum and is ideal if you believe that it would cost more to fix you van than to scrap it and get a new one if you were ever to be involved in a crash. If you have a more valuable transit van then you may want to look into getting more comprehensive cover, as a more expensive van may cost more to replace than to repair.
The best thing to do is work out the value of the van and how easily it would be to replace if the worst was to happen. If it's cheap and easy to replace then 3rd party would be an ideal way to save money on your van insurance. If your van is going to be costly to replace then it may want to look into more comprehensive cover.
As you may have guessed many workman running their own small business rely heavily on their tools, which they often store in the van over night. If these where to go missing the loss of the tools could cost anything up to £3000 not even considering the loss of business due to not having the tools to carry out the job.
Based on these facts alone any workmen or tradesmen who don't have contents cover included in their van insurance are crazy right? Well maybe not because the extra cost of covering the contents of the van may outweigh the cost of replacing the van and its contents.
Let's for example imagine that a 40 year old tradesman needed to re-new his van insurance and was considering getting contents cover for all the tools kept in the van overnight. The van is stored outside the house on the street overnight and the vans value is under the £1000 mark. Based on results given back from a price comparison website the extra cost of contents cover would be anything from £300 to £400 extra a year.
Well on the face of it, anyone would be daft not to get contents cover included on their van insurance. Yet in all honesty how likely are you to have your van and contents stolen, you would have to have your van stolen at least once every four years for the extra contents insurance to value for money. Even then if your van was stolen your premiums would go up anyway, so what is the point of having contents insurance if you're tradesman working for yourself.
The long and short of it is that contents insurance isn't entirely essential for your van, yet it all comes down to just how secure you think your tools are. If you believe you live in a safe area where car crime is low then surely you have little reason to believe that your van will stolen.
So if you decided not to get contents cover a good idea could be to store the most valuable tools in your house minimising the cost if the worst was to happen. Looking after your business is extremely important but don't get blindsided into getting cover that you may not even need.
Honor has more articles on van insurance. |
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