What sort of businesses can motor trade insurance cover?

Motor trade insurance is designed to cover all types of businesses involved in vehicle sales, maintenance or recovery. This includes individual car sellers through to dealerships; service and repair garages through to recovery operators.

Whether you work part-time or full-time, restore classic cars or transport prestige vehicles in an enclosed truck, or simply fix cars for friends, family and neighbours, you’re one of a range of businesses who help to keep the country moving.

The industry is diverse – and whatever you do in the motor trade, you’re going to need the correct insurance for your needs.

Let’s look at some of the trades and the types of motor trade insurance that you should consider for your business.

Buying and selling vehicles

The staple of the industry. Without cars, vans, bikes and other modes of transport on the road, it would be much more difficult to get about!

If you recognise your business on this list, then motor trade insurance is for you:

• Sole traders – buying and selling vehicles on a part-time or full-time basis
• Traders with forecourt premises
• Dealerships

Vehicles you will need cover for include:

• Car sales
• Van sales
• Motorbike sales
• A combination of car, van and motorcycle sales

More specialist sales might involve:

• Classic cars and vintage vehicles
• Prestige marques
• Sports cars
• Imported vehicles

You could pick up vehicles from many places, including:

• A car auction house
• An online auction
• A private sale
• From another trader
• As a trade-in against another vehicle

Providing you have relevant paperwork to show you have acquired the vehicle for your business – and it’s a vehicle that can be covered in your terms – then it can be added to your motor trade policy.

What insurance do you need to sell vehicles?

The minimum level of cover is road risks insurance. It provides you with cover to drive vehicles in connection with your business on either a third-party, third-party fire and theft or comprehensive basis. If you’re only a part-time trader, then this is likely to be enough cover for you.

With road risks insurance, you can add vehicles to your motor trade policy when you buy them, then remove them when you sell them (just as important as adding them on, unless you want to be issued with points on your licence or claims coming in for the misdemeanours of the person you sold the car to!)

If you’re dealing with higher volumes of vehicles, you should also consider cover for:

• Business premises – important for anyone who leases or buys a building to store their stock of vehicles.
• Stock of vehicles – as above, it’s not just buildings and business premises you need insurance for: it’s also the vehicles that are stored there.
• Tools on-site or in transit – particularly important if you service your own vehicles.
• Money – in case of theft of money from vehicle sales, for example

No matter what you do, it’s also worth considering public liability and employers’ liability insurance.

Dealerships will likely require the most wide-ranging cover possible – a traders combined policy that brings together all the above covers, and more.

There are lots of other covers you can get, too. Speak to one of our motor trade insurance experts for more information.

Servicing, repairing, maintaining and recovering vehicles

This covers off all the trades other than buying and selling vehicles – and there’s a lot of them!

• Service and repair garages. The mainstay of vehicle maintenance. Whether you’re part of the army of independent garages across the UK or part of a franchise or wider network, you need motor trade insurance.
• MOT stations. Very often linked to service and repair garages, standalone MOT stations will also need cover, including our optional loss of MOT licence cover.
• Body shops and body repairs. Carrying out repairs to panels or paintwork requires specialist skill – and motor trade insurance.
• Tyre fitters. Often out on the road and rescuing people following a puncture or blow-out – or simply going out to offices to fit tyres at the convenience of an office worker – you will need cover for the work you carry out. If you have your own premises, you’ll need cover for them and any stock of tyres, too.
• Mobile mechanics. Much like mobile tyre fitters, you might be carrying out a scheduled service or helping a stranded motorist to get moving again. In addition to standard motor trade insurance, this is where public liability insurance could be useful, too.
• Recovery operators. You need insurance for your vehicle, members of the public whose vehicles you attend to, transportation of their vehicle, tools you carry, and more besides.
• Vehicle collection and delivery agents. Just like recovery operators, you need cover for transporting vehicles – and you need the right limits of indemnity for the number and type of vehicles you are moving. Cover for your vehicle and liabilities is also important.
• Valeters. Cleaning and polishing cars has its risks, including claims for damage to vehicles. You’ll want to have the right insurance in place to protect against this.

What insurance do you need for motor trade repairs and maintenance?

Again, road risks insurance is the legal minimum requirement for driving cars left in your car, custody and control by your customers. Whether it’s moving the vehicle in a car park for a tyre fitter or mobile mechanic, or test driving a vehicle before or after carrying out repairs, you need to have this cover in place.

The other insurances you need will depend on whether you come into direct contact with members of the public, have any employees, have business premises, or need specific covers relating to your trade. Some of these are mentioned next to specific trades above.

Get the right motor trade cover

Contact Bollington for help and advice on 01625 855458, or request a quote online and we’ll search our insurance panel to give you the best insurance quotes from our panel of insurers.