Insurance is a legal requirement for anyone that’s driving on public roads, and it’s even more important to consider in a business sense. As a public hire driver your livelihood could be on the line if you don’t have the necessary insurance in place so getting adequate protection is essential, but remember that it’s important to think outside the box. Insuring your vehicle for business use is all well and good, but what about insuring it for personal/social/domestic arrangements? You don’t want to have to get a different policy (or even a whole separate vehicle) just so you can drive on your days off, so will your public hire insurance cover you for social driving?
Luckily, yes. Insurance companies understand your need to be insured both for both business and pleasure and in most cases getting insurance for both needn’t be an issue, with a lot of public hire policies automatically insuring you for both situations. But, you need to make sure your local authority allows this type of arrangement—in most cases it shouldn’t be a problem but always make sure to double-check their rules and regulations, because you wouldn’t want to find out you’re not legally allowed to drive your public hire vehicle for social use later down the line.
Then you might want to consider the possibility of adding your partner to your policy. As long as they’ll only be driving it for social use it shouldn’t be a problem, but again make sure to check with your local authority before you sign on the dotted line. Of course, you’ll always need to make sure that your insurance firm allows this kind of arrangement too as you wouldn’t want to find out you needed to get a completely separate policy, but in most cases you’ll easily be able to incorporate social driving into the mix.
It’s all about convenience but it’s something that a lot of people overlook in the quest to source their ideal policy, so make sure that your public hire insurance policy covers you for social driving and you can be properly protected no matter what your life calls for next.