Personal car insurance and business car insurance are necessities in our daily life. Many differences align the two and the price varies as well. When it comes to personal and business car insurance, there are some distinct differences.
If you are not looking to increase your rates, you will first need to get the driving record of any applicant that applies to your business. This protects you as the owner. You do not want to hire someone for the position only to find out their driving record is less than perfect. In fact, you might not be able to add them on to your policy at all. Then, this employee you hired only becomes a drain on production. Unlike personal car insurance policies where you are only responsible for your household; business policies are more risk and the employees do not always have your best interest in their thoughts.
The way the business policy works is to allow the business owner to decide what is most plausible for their business practices. For instance, you would want to carry additional coverage if you were transporting expensive materials or delivering important items. In a personal policy, you will not have to worry about that. This is one distinction between personal vs. business car insurance.
Lines can often times become blurred when deciding whether or not you have used your car more for business or for personal use when the same car is being used. To avoid this confusion, it is advised that you use a logger for miles and gas. This will help differentiate which miles were used where.
As always, a separate business policy is always recommended over a joint policy. There are many liabilities that come with business and to place your personal use in the middle is not often a good idea. If you are going to proceed using a personal policy for limited business use, you will need to contact the company you are insured with immediately and let them know. This will help prevent any claims being turned down in the event that something happens and you are using it for business use.
As stated above, you rate will increase because your usage has increased. Understand the usage for business is anything that is defined out of your daily use. In other words, driving to a conference is business use. This even applies if they reimburse you for miles and gas. If you transport goods or deliver items, you are using your personal vehicle for business use and it has to be documented. Sometimes we do not view things as business use because we consistently do them without even thinking. . Always keep everything in check because there are certain ramifications for not complying.
Never be challenged later down the road with not having adequate coverage or being denied a claim because you did not inform the insurance company of your situation. Talk to an agent and get the best deal.
Graham McKenzie is the content syndication coordinator for Carinsurancesa.co.za. South Arica?s leading Car Insurance portal, which provides cover for all Car Insurance types.
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