Van insurance you can rely on

A lot of online quote platforms still use dated terminology when it comes to how you use your vehicle. Here’s a quick overview.

Carriage of own goods:

This effectively means that you use your van for your business and only carry your tools and materials for the job you’re doing. For example, a self-employed plumber might keep their tools in the van along with copper piping and fixings for the day’s work.

Carriage of goods for hire and reward:

Broadly speaking, this means that you carry other people’s stuff and charge for this service. An example would be a courier or delivery driver collecting and delivering parcels.

Furniture removals:

This probably doesn’t need much explanation but it’s important to note that house clearances and furniture removals (even man and van hire) is priced differently from courier or delivery driver usage.

Commuting:

If you travel to a permanent place of work but need to carry more stuff than would usually fit in a car, commuting use would usually be sufficient cover.

Social, domestic and pleasure:

In a nutshell, this encompasses your general day-to-day activities that don’t involve any business-related use. For instance, shopping, visiting friends and family, and traveling on holiday are a few examples of this type of use classification.

This depends on when you passed your driving test but you should be able to drive a van if you have a full UK licence. If you passed your test before 1997 and your licence shows a Category B entitlement, you’re good to drive any van or truck up to 8,250kg in weight. If you passed your test in 1997 or later and your licence shows a Category B entitlement, you can drive a light commercial van up to 3,500kg in weight. For larger vans or trucks, your licence would need to show Category C, Category CE, Category C1 or Category C1E. You can check your entitlements on the Government website.

We can usually sort your van insurance cover no matter how old you are, provided you hold a full UK licence. Of course, if you’re under 21 your cover is likely to be considerably more expensive than more experienced drivers might pay.

Yes, absolutely. Provided the other drivers meet the acceptance criteria of your current policy, then you can usually add up to 4 additional drivers. If you have a lot of additional drivers and they’re all aged over 25, then you will probably need cover for any driver.

No, we can only cover single vehicles on a van insurance policy. However, if you have more than two vans, we can arrange cover on a fleet or mini-fleet policy.

Almost all van insurance policies exclude cover for your goods and materials. Don’t worry though, we offer goods in transit cover as an additional policy for a small charge.

Just like the goods and materials you might carry, tools are not usually covered on a van insurance policy. But that’s not a problem – you can choose to add tools cover as an optional extra.