My partner was working in a truck yesterday for the first full shift with Agency work.
Unfortunately, he slightly bumped into a petrol station gas canister cage which damaged it. He has had a call from the company he was working for (not the agency) telling him that the petrol station are claiming for the damaged cage. The lady on the phone notified him that it will affect his personal insurance and he has to declare it to his own insurance company, is this correct?
I thought business related accidents were exempt from your personal insurance.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
Only if you are the operator, the driver doesn’t need to anything apart from exchange details and report it to his employer / agency.
Sounds like the operator is trying it on
In my last job, the gaffer informed us that we HAD to report ANY accident to OUR insurance company. I left the company over 4 years ago so I no longer have the directive in writing as it was shredded, but it was on the insurance company headed paper.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
Only if you are the operator, the driver doesn’t need to anything apart from exchange details and report it to his employer / agency.
Sounds like the operator is trying it on
In my last job, the gaffer informed us that we HAD to report ANY accident to OUR insurance company. I left the company over 4 years ago so I no longer have the directive in writing as it was shredded, but it was on the insurance company headed paper.
And you believed him? ooooohhhhh scary! Insurance company headed paper! more bull stein swallowed.
tin hat on …
Though not wholly legit and probably too late, when he’s asked to fill in the accident report on returning to the depot, when filling in the section about his personnel details. Why not input the contact address of the driver as the address of the agency. Then any future correspondence will be forwarded to him via the agy.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
Only if you are the operator, the driver doesn’t need to anything apart from exchange details and report it to his employer / agency.
Sounds like the operator is trying it on
I think what the OP is asking is if an accident which happens in a truck needs to be reported by the driver to his own, car, insurance company. And yes, it should be although it shouldn’t affect the NCB if it is not a claim against the car policy.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
Only if you are the operator, the driver doesn’t need to anything apart from exchange details and report it to his employer / agency.
Sounds like the operator is trying it on
I think what the OP is asking is if an accident which happens in a truck needs to be reported by the driver to his own, car, insurance company. And yes, it should be although it shouldn’t affect the NCB if it is not a claim against the car policy.
That will be interesting, as drivers seem to think the odd bumper hanging off or a N/S panel stoved in doesn’t really matter at the best of times…
My advice is to keep the insurance companies out of the loop where ever possible, be warned
Yes you are supposed to inform your insurers of any accidents you are involved in while driving, even if it’s not in a vehicle they insure.
You wouldn’t lose your no claims bonus as you haven’t made a claim on your private policy.
You have to be careful as there’s a database (CUE) that insurers sometimes check against that has details of drivers that have been involved in claims. If your partners details are on there and his insurers do a random check, they may see he’s been involved in an accident and use that as grounds to either deny a payout to you should you be involved in an accident in the car (they would also take you to court to recover monies they’re obliged to pay out to involved third parties) or terminate his insurance policy which may leave him driving uninsured which has big consequences when trying to get future jobs and insurance.
Although that’s all doom and gloom, is there no way for him to try and settle it directly with the garage? If the trucks not damaged then find out how much it would be to repair the cage. A competent fabricator wouldn’t need long if it’s only just been tapped by a truck or did he do a proper job on it?
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
I think you’d have to form the view that the damage in question is pertinent to the policy in question. I would say minor manoeuvring bumps in a HGV such as the OPs, are not relevant to personal motor policies.
And contrary to some popular belief, you do not need to field your insurer’s opinion on every aspect of your ongoing daily life - you don’t need to tell them you dropped the soap in the shower, or that you tripped over at the shops.
There could be an overlap in more serious cases (such as crashing a HGV whilst drunk), but that is another question.
m1cks:
Yes you are supposed to inform your insurers of any accidents you are involved in while driving, even if it’s not in a vehicle they insure.
What if you fall off your pushbike? Or if you operate a digger and accidentally dig into a drain on site? Or if you are involved in (but not driving during) a train crash? Or trip on a flagstone on the public highway? What about military drivers who have motoring-related “accidents” in the theatre, like crashing tanks or being blown up by IEDs?
There has to be some recognisable connection with a question your insurer actually asks. If they ask for accidents, I would interpret that to mean accidents in connection with your personal motoring - not necessarily involving the same vehicle as insured by that insurer, but certainly similar classes of vehicle, and driven under circumstances similar to which that policy will apply.
You wouldn’t lose your no claims bonus as you haven’t made a claim on your private policy.
You have to be careful as there’s a database (CUE) that insurers sometimes check against that has details of drivers that have been involved in claims.
Certainly there will be no effect on his NCB - it is not even a risk covered by his domestic policy, and there can be no claim on it! As for CUE, doesn’t that only record claims on personal policies, and only recorded with the consent of the driver concerned? Insurers don’t just run blacklists or secret databases.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
I think you’d have to form the view that the damage in question is pertinent to the policy in question. I would say minor manoeuvring bumps in a HGV such as the OPs, are not relevant to personal motor policies.
Then you’d be wrong. If you get an endorsement on your licence while driving an HGV then you have to report it when you renew your car insurance and the exact same thing applies to accidents while driving HGVs. You can of course decide not to, but then you run the risk of your insurance company discovering it if you have a serious accident in your car and declining to pay out.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
Only if you are the operator, the driver doesn’t need to anything apart from exchange details and report it to his employer / agency.
Sounds like the operator is trying it on
You misunderstand. When you come to renew your car insurance you are asked if you have had any accidents and that means any at all, not just any you’ve claimed for on your policy. If you’ve had an accident in the truck at work, answer no to the question, make a claim and it comes to light you had an accident you didn’t declare when getting new insurance then your insurance will be voided. Technically its also a criminal offence.
Driver-Once-More:
You have to notify your insurance company of ANY accident you are involved in.
I think you’d have to form the view that the damage in question is pertinent to the policy in question. I would say minor manoeuvring bumps in a HGV such as the OPs, are not relevant to personal motor policies.
Then you’d be wrong. If you get an endorsement on your licence while driving an HGV then you have to report it when you renew your car insurance and the exact same thing applies to accidents while driving HGVs. You can of course decide not to, but then you run the risk of your insurance company discovering it if you have a serious accident in your car and declining to pay out.
But they ask specifically about points - and if for example you speed in a HGV, that is comparable to (and perhaps worse than) an inclination to speed in a car.
Meanwhile, they don’t ask specifically about accidents in your employer’s HGVs - and as I say, if “any accidents” really meant any kind of accident in any situation, we’d have soldiers coming home to have to declare to their insurers that their tanks were destroyed with millions of pounds of losses.
When an insurer asks about accidents, they are (unless further clarified by them) asking about car-related accidents or similar. I think an insured could quite reasonably take the view that minor bumps at work which strictly concern the manoeuvring of HGVs (and maybe don’t even happen on the public road) are not material to a private car policy, nor are accidents which are unrelated to your driving (such as an unforeseeable trailer tyre blowout, which causes little or no consequential damage). Falling off the steps of your cab wouldn’t count either. There are probably more examples where I think we’d all accept the events have no obvious relevance to a private car policy.
Also, if the insurer thinks these things are relevant, then it is for them to show that they asked a clear and direct question - it is not sufficient to show that they asked a question which in its generality is capable of encompassing the facts that the insurer later says they wanted to know about (such as asking about “any accidents” which could encompass almost any event in your life), but that it was a question that was actually evocative of those facts in the minds of a reasonable insured.
ooooohhhhh scary! Insurance company headed paper! 
more bull stein swallowed. 
