Self Employed Courier Jobs And Insurance

Posted by Jeff Knowles on Friday, June 14, 2019 Under: Motorcycle Couriers

For the self-employed driver, courier jobs are a potentially attractive and lucrative business. However, as in most forms of enterprise, you’ll need to think a little about insurance cover.

Self-Employment

Before talking specifically about insurance, it’s worth spending a little time considering just what self-employed means in the context of courier jobs. It could mean that you have your own motorcycle or vehicle and ride or drive it yourself. Perhaps you also market your own services directly to your clients. Another model might be all of the above, with the difference being you work in the office and employ a rider or driver to use your transport. You may conceivably do any of these things an effectively market yourself exclusively as a sub-contractor to other courier companies. Of course, you could also simply be a freelance individual working as a sole trader but offering yourself as someone who will drive other people’s vehicles for them.

There are a significant number of variations here and the insurance requirements for each of them will be substantially different. Consequently, you need to make sure you take professional advice from a qualified insurance adviser.

Vehicle cover

If you own any sort of vehicle that is being used by you or anyone else for the purposes of commerce - including courier jobs - it will need to have some form of commercial insurance in place. As well as statutory third-party cover, it would be highly advisable for that to provide protection not only for the vehicle itself, but also for some form of ‘carriage of goods’ protection. Remember that under some circumstances, someone you are carrying items for may expect reimbursement if their items have been lost, stolen or damaged whilst in your care. Never, under any circumstances, simply use a motorcycle or vehicle for courier work if you only have ‘private use’ type insurance for it. Your policy will typically be immediately invalidated.

Professional liability cover

Whatever your contract might say to the contrary, if you are offering someone a service and then failed to deliver it, they may have grounds to sue you for their losses under the auspices of ‘professional negligence’ in some situations. You would be wise to have this type of cover in place.

Employer’s liability cover

If you are employing people to use your vehicles on your behalf, even if they are operating on a self-employed basis, the law may still demand that you have in place employers’ liability cover governing their activities. Be wary of assuming this won’t apply to you because you have got the person concerned to sign some sort of declaration that they will look after their own interests. In a court of law, if they claim against you for damages incurred during the legitimate pursuance of their duties, that piece of paper may be worthless.

Personal liability protection

This is a type of cover that may apply if you are a self-employed ‘sole trader’ type individual selling your services as an experienced rider or driver. You should be clear that your position is not that of an employee. The position may be different in your case. Don’t assume that the person you are selling your services to will automatically have insurance in place.

Premises cover

A final thought for those using their home as their normal place of business – irrespective of which of the above categories of self-employed you come under.

Remember that some ordinary household insurance may make a distinction between normal owner-occupier cover and that which they would require you to have if you are running a business from your house. It’s worth taking their advice on this before starting to use it as the headquarters of your own courier jobs empire.

Self Employed Courier Jobs And Insurance

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