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Quick Car Insurance question

If you drive and park near a station, to catch train/tube to work, does that constitute commuting ?

Someone has hit my car whilst I was at work and not left any note, so just wondering if that is considered 'commuting' or if commuting is driving to the place of work.
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Comments

  • You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.
  • Well it is opposite the road I lived in until July.
    Was delivering christmas cards...
  • Most motor policies will have Social, Domestic and Pleasure use (ie standard use) and then SDP plus commuting. I assume you told them that you didn't use it for commuting so as to get cheaper insurance?
  • edited November 2014
    Yes, it does.

    Here's an example of what an insurance co says about it under its SD&P section:

    However you will not be covered for driving to the station on your way to work, driving to your workplace itself, or for using the car in any other way connected with work.
  • Rizzo said:

    Most motor policies will have Social, Domestic and Pleasure use (ie standard use) and then SDP plus commuting. I assume you told them that you didn't use it for commuting so as to get cheaper insurance?

    I didnt commute as lived 200 yards from tube station but moved in July and now drive 2 miles to same tube station but didnt think about changing the insurance policy other than the address.

    wasnt to save money - just oversight when moving.
  • cafcfan said:

    Yes, it does.

    Here's an example of what an insurance co says about it under its SD&P section:

    However you will not be covered for driving to the station on your way to work, driving to your workplace itself, or for using the car in any other way connected with work.

    just managed to log in to policy and pretty much that is what it says.
  • You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    This. You can think of a million reasons why you were driving a particular route or parked in a particular place without telling them what you were actually doing.

  • edited November 2014
    Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.
  • edited November 2014
    Rizzo said:

    Most motor policies will have Social, Domestic and Pleasure use (ie standard use) and then SDP plus commuting. I assume you told them that you didn't use it for commuting so as to get cheaper insurance?

    this .. 'uberrima fides', latin for utmost good faith is THE overriding factor in all insurance dealings .. an oversight or 'I forgot to inform the company' of any changes relevant to the insurance cover is no defence .. you used the car as part of your journey to work, therefore you used it outside the S D P limitations .. of course you are perfectly free to deny this and the company is perfectly able to deny that you were covered at the relevant time .. it depends probably on the damage to your car and is it worth the Insurance company's time and effort to fully investigate the claim

    PS But you have already sussed this out
  • MrOneLung said:

    cafcfan said:

    Yes, it does.

    Here's an example of what an insurance co says about it under its SD&P section:

    However you will not be covered for driving to the station on your way to work, driving to your workplace itself, or for using the car in any other way connected with work.

    just managed to log in to policy and pretty much that is what it says.
    Really? I always thought most SDP policies covered you driving to and from a permanent place of work. You only need business cover if you start driving around from place to place.

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  • Just doing a dummy quote request and when you choose the type of cover it shows:

    What's the difference?

    Social, Domestic & Pleasure (SDP) covers all named drivers for everyday journeys, but does not insure commuting or any trips related to work or study.

    Social, Domestic, Pleasure & Commuting (SDPC) covers all named drivers for everyday journeys, including to and from a single place of work or study (or any location part of the daily commute, such as a station).

    Social & Business covers travel to more than one workplace and travel during the day for work, and well as SDPC travel. The policyholder can be covered for business use, and also their spouse or partner if they are a named driver. This does not cover deliveries or travel with paying passengers, and not all customers will be eligible to choose it.


    But then again, it wasn't an accident to or from the station.
    It was parked up in a road.

    maybe I parked there to get tube to Westfield Stratford....
  • Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.

    Ignore this completely. It's 100% wrong.

  • Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.

    This is almost 100% incorrect.
  • What's the difference in premiums for SDP and SDP+commuting?

    I bet a lot less than the repairs.
  • This commuting lark is a relatively recent innovation by the licenced thieves.

    Once upon a time social domestic and pleasure included travel to and from the normal place of work although you needed business cover of some description if visiting client / customer premises
  • LenGlover said:

    This commuting lark is a relatively recent innovation by the licenced thieves.

    Once upon a time social domestic and pleasure included travel to and from the normal place of work although you needed business cover of some description if visiting client / customer premises

    times change
  • edited November 2014
    I thought you drove to visit a friend and then, as you had a parking space, decided to travel up to London later.

    If the car was stationary and hit by person or persons unidentified your reason for being in the location is irrelevant I would have thought even though the bastards will try to duck out as they inevitably do!
  • JohnBoyUK said:

    You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    This. You can think of a million reasons why you were driving a particular route or parked in a particular place without telling them what you were actually doing.

    Yeah, you might get away with it.....

    On the other hand insurance companies are far from stupid and come into contact with idiots who try this sort of stuff every day. I cannot believe how dumb some people are when dealing with insurers. They do this stuff for a living and like nothing more than a valid reason to turn down a claim. They have very sophisticated ways of checking out all those porkie pies.

    You know that nice "we may record this telephone conversation" message? Well, they do, every single one.

    Since the early 2000s, some (now possibly all?) firms are running software called "voice risk analysis" which flags if it thinks you are lying. That on top of the data mining software and data sharing that they've been doing for years.
    A nice chatty operative (aka someone who works in the fraud department but they won't tell you that) will then get you talking about where you went for your holiday, what sort of work you do, whether it's a full time job, how you get there, that sort of thing.

    Before you know where you are, your claim will be denied, your existing policy will be cancelled and you'll never get motor insurance ever again. Worth trying? Probably not. Unless you want to be walking to work until you collect your pension.

    Oh, then there's this story: ayradvertiser.com/news/ayr/articles/2013/11/01/477136-grandmother-has-her-car-impounded-and-is-forced-to-pay-450/
  • Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.

    How can a man be wrong so often ?
  • Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.

    For someone that sells insurance for a living I would have thought that you would have made sure you were 100% correct before publicly stating something that looks like it might be, shall we say, a little inaccurate.

    I'm not in the car insurance game, but with so many other posters calling you out, you might want to check your facts.
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  • Ignore most of the above. what you did does not constitute "commuting". You were simply driving to the train station. end of. Using your car for work purposes (which I do) means not only travelling to & from your place of work (you didn't do that - you caught a train) but also using your car for work purposes (seeing clients / delivering stock etc)

    You are fine & did not invalidate your insurance.

    How can a man be wrong so often ?
    Never let the facts get in the way of a golfaddick post!

  • cafcfan said:

    JohnBoyUK said:

    You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    This. You can think of a million reasons why you were driving a particular route or parked in a particular place without telling them what you were actually doing.

    Yeah, you might get away with it.....

    On the other hand insurance companies are far from stupid and come into contact with idiots who try this sort of stuff every day. I cannot believe how dumb some people are when dealing with insurers. They do this stuff for a living and like nothing more than a valid reason to turn down a claim. They have very sophisticated ways of checking out all those porkie pies.

    You know that nice "we may record this telephone conversation" message? Well, they do, every single one.

    Since the early 2000s, some (now possibly all?) firms are running software called "voice risk analysis" which flags if it thinks you are lying. That on top of the data mining software and data sharing that they've been doing for years.
    A nice chatty operative (aka someone who works in the fraud department but they won't tell you that) will then get you talking about where you went for your holiday, what sort of work you do, whether it's a full time job, how you get there, that sort of thing.

    Before you know where you are, your claim will be denied, your existing policy will be cancelled and you'll never get motor insurance ever again. Worth trying? Probably not. Unless you want to be walking to work until you collect your pension.

    Oh, then there's this story: ayradvertiser.com/news/ayr/articles/2013/11/01/477136-grandmother-has-her-car-impounded-and-is-forced-to-pay-450/
    Blimey, thats a bit of an eye opener :(

  • LenGlover said:

    This commuting lark is a relatively recent innovation by the licenced thieves.

    Once upon a time social domestic and pleasure included travel to and from the normal place of work although you needed business cover of some description if visiting client / customer premises

    It's entirely understandable but you are looking at it the wrong way round.

    Motor insurance is a ferociously competitive market. The insurers are looking for as many ways as possible to provide the lowest possible quotes. One way, is to not have certain motorists, the retired for example, subsidising those who take their cars out on the road in all weathers and particularly during the hours of darkness in the winter when a large number of vehicles are on the road. That's why they split commuting out of standard SDP to make sure their products were properly focussed on those that need them and people were not paying for aspects of cover they didn't need. Other changes have included a black box in your car; having a clause which declines to pay out in the event you were drink/driving; that sort of thing.

    I'm just surprised they haven't got even more sophisticated. What happens when they cotton on to football supporters who are out driving in all weathers for those pesky mid-week winter matches? Will there be a SDP without commuting and without supporting Charlton policy? ;-)
  • You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    Nail on head.

  • You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    Nail on head.

    As has been mentioned above, motor insurers do this for a living. I suspect they may have heard that one before and might be asking questions as to why the car was parked there during working hours, 2 miles from the policyholders home but next door to a tube station.

  • In Golfie's defence, I have just phoned up re the policy on our other car with another insurance company to add in commuting and they have said travel to and from one place of work is covered under the social and domestic policy !!!

    So if you have got Social and Domestic use policy:

    Axa Insurance - not covered for going to/from station and place of work.
    LV insurance - you are covered going to/from station or one place of work.
  • Rizzo said:

    You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    Nail on head.

    As has been mentioned above, motor insurers do this for a living. I suspect they may have heard that one before and might be asking questions as to why the car was parked there during working hours, 2 miles from the policyholders home but next door to a tube station.

    I do it for a living!! They won't ask any further, it'll be a throw away question - if they do, then he had a day off.

    In 9 years of Motor Claims handling, the only claims I've seem thrown out for this are the ones who are too stupid to remember they said they didn't commute at the start of the policy.
  • Rizzo said:

    You were visiting a friend when you parked there. That's all they need to know.

    Nail on head.

    As has been mentioned above, motor insurers do this for a living. I suspect they may have heard that one before and might be asking questions as to why the car was parked there during working hours, 2 miles from the policyholders home but next door to a tube station.

    I do it for a living!! They won't ask any further, it'll be a throw away question - if they do, then he had a day off.

    In 9 years of Motor Claims handling, the only claims I've seem thrown out for this are the ones who are too stupid to remember they said they didn't commute at the start of the policy.
    I hope he does get away with it as it sounds like a genuine mistake rather than any intent to cheat.

  • MrOneLung said:

    In Golfie's defence, I have just phoned up re the policy on our other car with another insurance company to add in commuting and they have said travel to and from one place of work is covered under the social and domestic policy !!!

    So if you have got Social and Domestic use policy:

    Axa Insurance - not covered for going to/from station and place of work.
    LV insurance - you are covered going to/from station or one place of work.

    Funny that - my car insurance is with LV !!!! But I have had work use on my policies for almost 25 years now so I may be a little out of touch with the new policies that exclude taking you car anywhere !!!
  • edited November 2014
    I've been speaking to the insurance company with the dog that has a name like a 2nd world war PM.... This is their stance...

    If you drive to a station or to your primary fixed place of work, that is covered under Social, Domestic and Pleasure. In other words, commuting is included in SD&P.

    However, if you need to drive as part of your job, for example you need to drive to other locations as part of your role, you need to insure for Business Use.

    In addition, if you have 2 jobs you will also need Business Use as you will essentially have more than one fixed place of work.

    Changing your policy from SD&P to Business Use typically costs nothing extra. If you have 2 jobs, make sure your insurers know. Again, does not cost any extra.

    Also, if you are the policy holder for one car and a named driver for another vehicle on a different policy, you'll potentially need that policy also changed to Business Use.

    If you open a policy with Churchill via an online quote, the policy is now automatically setup as Business Use. This may not be the case if you opened your policy via an online quote a few years ago. Check your documentation.

    Hope this is useful. Remember, different insurance companies may have a different approach so best speak to your insurers.
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