are you suggesting i take out my own seperate insurance policy 
if so have you any idea of the cost
war1974:
self employed agency drivers get £1 per hour more get no holidays and have to sort out their own tax etc! i for one wouldnt pay and would go to court if needed you pay for the ‘driver’ to do the work set at a far reduced rate than if you paid a subbie to do the whole job with insurance!this is why if i was to go self employed i would do it by myself not via an agency but i would charge what the agency does
I understand where you are coming from, however, if you went to court you would lose, the above points are of no interest legally. honest i have been to loads of court cases !There is a legal chain, it starts with me and ends with whoever does the job, each person is responsible to the next.For example, i get an agency to get me a driver, they give it to an unmbrella co who gives it a driver, if i went bankrupt the umbrella comapny still has a legal right to be paid from the agency, because of the chain. the fact that i went skinnt and they didntget paid is off no interest legally
commonrail:
are you suggesting i take out my own seperate insurance policy
good point ! If you are employed by an agency direct i would say no, if you have an umbrella type co, or are self employed yourself then definately yes.As a matter of intest again, i had a insurance contract with royal sun alliance for cmr git ins.We bought a groupage load from italy back, it got stolen in the yard, claims came to about£125,000.00 yep because in the groupage load we had 1 ton of sheet copper the ins company refused to pay, because we didnt have cover for high value metal, they refused to pay for anything, that left me liable to pay the people whos load was stolen for there loss.After 4 yrs of me taking them to court it got settled cost me 25k in the end, which i paid, luckilly i had it at the time, if i had lost i wouldnt be sitting here in my own house now.Just because you have insurance dont meaan the ins co will want to pay out ! An insurance companys job is to make money if that invovlves shafting you in the process, so be it.
If a haulier wants to sue a Ltd Co agency driver for damages etc, what’s to stop the agency driver folding the Ltd Co and limiting his losses to the limited liability of his Ltd Co and ultimately shafting the haulier who’s trying to shaft him?
Absolutely nothing! other than the assets of his ltd company, however if found guilty of doing this to try and avoid a claim against him, its is possible, although rare, to still sue the director even after the company has folded, though this would only be done if its deemed that the director has a suitable asset to go afterI I guess it would depend on the amount of money involved, .
Pierre, i still think you have missed my point about the chain, i wouldnt care if the umbrella co went skint, cos my claim would be against the agency who i ordered a driver from, not the umbrella co, the umbrellla co is the concern of the agency.
how about i leave a cash deposit before i start work…that way you can deduct from it,should i not meet your criteria.
btw you can also nip round our house and ■■■■ our lass whilst i`m away 
commonrail:
how about i leave a cash deposit before i start work…that way you can deduct from it,should i not meet your criteria.
btw you can also nip round our house and [zb] our lass whilst i`m away
Been there, seen that, done her, proper job…lol 
richmond:
commonrail:
how about i leave a cash deposit before i start work…that way you can deduct from it,should i not meet your criteria.
btw you can also nip round our house and [zb] our lass whilst i`m awayBeen there, seen that, done her, proper job…lol
PMSL 
So its a lose, lose for the driver, agency says you have to go ltd or umbrella because they need to make their cut because haulier wants cheap agency labour then when something goes wrong driver is f####d, what a wonderful world 
Just picture richmond sueing the whole world! Uh oh ive just ripped a suppressor off govenor is gonna sue me now
They are driving your truck you have gave them an assessment, basic training and deemed them good enough so they are on your insurance well morally at least
If they have a major crash laying in hospital near death you gonnae send round the lawyers?
We are turning into the frigin yanks
It’s not all doom and gloom,if all goes to plan you could end up with the princely sum of 80 pounds
Please sir,can I have some more…
First, im not here to have a go at anyone, im just hopefully pointing some things out to some people who may not have considered them.Second, surely its better to know now, rather than after an event, thirdly, what the ■■■■ is a suppressor, if ya break one, pls bring it round the yard and show me, cos i dont know what one is(however im sure i can find the price of it)…You need to be carefull if your self employed, money is money and lastly if you can find anyone what can do, what i get my men to do, for 80 quid pls send them around…some get more than double that a day, depending on what work they are on, and yes, for that kind of money i want a good driver, not a muppet who can talk a good job , but not do a good job. 
who is the agency an agent for, the driver or the employer?
Surely that would have a bearing.
Richmond, you say you don’t employ agency drivers (Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:51 am) so I’m taking most of what you say to be hypothetical. I’m one of these people who do actually read the small print of whatever I sign and I keep the copy (i’ve just dug it out to check what it says about insurance, though it is over 3 years old it’s still what I go by). I have it in writing that I had to do a driving assessment in order to be placed on the employer’s insurance cover and so I am covered by that, not by my own PLI (which I have for another business, but not as a driver), nor by the agency’s cover (which has no insurance connection to me). It doesn’t even make any mention of an excess to which I might be liable. I’m currently sole trader as I don’t do enough driving to warrant being a Ltd Co, (plus I’m really not sure about the legalities of it), so I would have to be certain of whose insurance covers me. The agency certainly doesn’t pay me enough on top of what I used to get as PAYE to justify additional insurance cover, so I’m certainly not even looking into getting it. I would be interested to know what other’s agency agreements actually say with regard to this.
And to think ,people wonder why folks dont want to be drivers anymore…amongest ,the reasons ,we can now put down …'getting f~cked over more times than a bangkok rent -boy ’
tally man, by my reckoning you being self employed, not on paye, for agency would definatley a candidate for having your own insurance as you are a sub contractor to the agency.However, as you say this is my hypothetical theory, but if i was you would definatley double check just whos insurance you are on. the easy way to do it, in my opinion, is as somebody hinted at earlier, get your own ltd co, dont secure anything to it personally and if it all went wrong you can just bankrupt it, in my opinion self employed without a ltd co, is very dangerous teritory, as if you had a claim against you they could take any of your personal assets off you to pay for it.You can buy a ltd co off the shelf for about 80 quid, after my lifes experiance i wouldnt t even run a sweetshop unless its a ltd co, and i would go on to suggest that no matter what you think of my ramblings, that alone is the best advice anybody can ever give anyone in business.good luck
richmond:
tally man, by my reckoning you being self employed, not on paye, for agency would definatley a candidate for having your own insurance as you are a sub contractor to the agency.However, as you say this is my hypothetical theory, but if i was you would definatley double check just whos insurance you are on. the easy way to do it, in my opinion, is as somebody hinted at earlier, get your own ltd co, dont secure anything to it personally and if it all went wrong you can just bankrupt it, in my opinion self employed without a ltd co, is very dangerous teritory, as if you had a claim against you they could take any of your personal assets off you to pay for it.You can buy a ltd co off the shelf for about 80 quid, after my lifes experiance i wouldnt t even run a sweetshop unless its a ltd co, and i would go on to suggest that no matter what you think of my ramblings, that alone is the best advice anybody can ever give anyone in business.good luck
I already have one limited company for my main business (I’m what some of my clients refer to as an IT consultant, & you may know how they were one of the first trades to be hit by HMRC). I used to do PAYE driving on the side, just to keep my hand in and keep the taxman happy, then went sole trader when asked to by the agency simply because my accountant advised me that I could not legally set myself up as a Ltd Co driver with only one agency (this is a few years ago before the rules started to get a bit grey). It was your comments as an employer regarding how you consider the arrangement between company, agency and driver that got me digging out my paperwork. As I say, I’m reasonably confident with the insurance arrangements that are in place between myself & the agency, but I will pop in during the week just to throw the question at them, because in these times of companies looking to save money it would be very interesting to see what would happen if client companies started having the same attitude to drivers/ insurance as you. At that point I shall be leaving driving behind completely, but I’ll post back with their comments anyway.
By the way, it’s Tallyman - all one word - I used to be a debt collector, of sorts, many years ago… 
richmond:
war1974:
self employed agency drivers get £1 per hour more get no holidays and have to sort out their own tax etc! i for one wouldnt pay and would go to court if needed you pay for the ‘driver’ to do the work set at a far reduced rate than if you paid a subbie to do the whole job with insurance!this is why if i was to go self employed i would do it by myself not via an agency but i would charge what the agency does
I understand where you are coming from, however, if you went to court you would lose, the above points are of no interest legally. honest i have been to loads of court cases !There is a legal chain, it starts with me and ends with whoever does the job, each person is responsible to the next.For example, i get an agency to get me a driver, they give it to an unmbrella co who gives it a driver, if i went bankrupt the umbrella comapny still has a legal right to be paid from the agency, because of the chain. the fact that i went skinnt and they didntget paid is off no interest legally
that maybe so but you go in to drive you trucks on your insurance for you then to say ‘oh i aint claiming on my insurance but want you to on yours i would guess would then mean the vehicle has 2x insurance on it which i guess would therfore be illegal’ you hire a driver on the basis that the vehicle is fit for the road and the driver has relevant experience and licence, the only way i could legally see you claiming is if the driver had not driven the amount of days etc? i fail to see how going via an umbrella company can make you liable for damages otherwise massive schemes like nova etc would have to cover there workers via the fee they charge (at a guess) maybe i am wrong but as far as we were concerned we didnt even have a responsibility to get tachos back to the client (all in our terms of business) but would obviously try to!
am going to check my own agreement tomorrow as you have got me really thinking on this one now 