You’re most likely here because you’re looking for the best man and van insurance cover available?
A man and van insurance policy consists of 3 separate policies to be covered by when driving for hire or reward.
- Van Insurance For Hire & Reward
- Goods In Transit Insurance
- Public Liability Insurance
Only one of these is a legal requirement.
Man And Van Insurance For Hire And Reward
Van insurance for hire & reward is a legal requirement to be on the road. If you’re a man and van company, then you must be covered by this very particular type of policy.
Goods In Transit Insurance
Goods in transit insurance is not legally required by law, but gives your customer peace of mind knowing that their property or goods are fully insured against breakage or accidents whilst under your charge.
Most goods in transit insurance policies cover you up to the loss of £10,000 and premiums are usually less than £10 per month.
Public Liability Insurance
Public liability insurance is another insurance that isn’t legally required to operate your man and van business. However if you injure a member of the public in the course of operating your business and you aren’t insured against public liability, good luck.
Public liability cover is normally up to the value of £4,000,000 and can be had for less than £10 per month depending on the nature of your business.
Choosing The Right Insurance For Your Man And Van Business
We called 5 leading companies for man and van insurance cover (for hire & reward) and for a fair comparison, we decided we would break this test down to 7 critical points.
Call wait time for a new customer.
Call wait time for an existing customer.
Cost to make later changes to the policy.
Compulsory excess.
Review rating on Trust Pilot.
Level of insurance cover.
Price.
* Calling any of these companies as a new customer is always going to be fast – of course, they want your business so expect to speak to a sales rep almost instantly.
** Calling any of these companies as an existing customer, this is where we expect things to get a bit slower. Insurance companies are less enthusiastic to deal with you once you’ve already signed up.
We just hung up as soon as we got through to a rep and all calls were made at exactly 2pm by 5 of our guys on a Tuesday afternoon for a fair response time test.
*** Making changes to an existing insurance policy can be for anything from changing the van on your vehicle to adding another driver at any point during the lifetime of your policy. They charge extra for EVERY change you make – the question is, by how much?
We posed as a brand new man and van business with zero no claims discount on the van. The main driver of the policy would be 30 years old, self-employed and has held a full UK driving licence for 10 years.
He has children under 16 and is living with partner, has 3 points for speeding, 5 years no claims discount on own car and has opted for a £500 voluntary excess on this new policy.
Top Quotes For Man And Van Insurance
To find the best insurance policy for a brand new start up man and van company, the van we chose was a 2007 Ford TRANSIT 330 SWB 110PS 2200cc Diesel Manual to value £2700 which will be used for hire and reward.
*All figures given below are accurate at time of print 04/01/2020. Here’s what we found out.
Budget Van Insurance
https://www.budgetinsurance.com/van-insurance/
Time To Answer (new customer): Almost right away.
Time To Answer (existing customer): 42 minutes.
Cost to make later changes to the policy: £20.
Compulsory Excess: £150.
Review Rating On Trust Pilot:
- Excellent: 68%
- Great: 17%
- Average: 4%
- Poor: 2%
- Bad: 8%
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/budgetinsurance.com
Level Of Cover:
- Legal Assistance: Yes.
- Breakdown Cover: +£49.20
- Personal Accident Cover: Yes.
- Windscreen Cover: Yes.
- Courtesy Vehicle: Yes.
Price:
Annual: £1189.19.
Monthly: 1 x £178.40 & 11 x £104.83 = £1331.53.
Dial Direct Van Insurance
https://www.dialdirect.co.uk/vaninsurance/
Time To Answer (new customer): Almost right away.
Time To Answer (existing customer): 26 minutes.
Cost to make later changes to the policy: £20.
Compulsory Excess: £150.
Review Rating On Trust Pilot:
- Excellent: 69%
- Great: 19%
- Average: 3%
- Poor: 2%
- Bad: 7%
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.dialdirect.co.uk
Level Of Cover:
- Legal Assistance: Yes.
- Breakdown Cover: No.
- Personal Accident Cover: Yes.
- Windscreen Cover: Yes.
- Courtesy Vehicle: Yes.
Price:
Annual: £1210.40.
Monthly: 1 x £181.57 & 11 x £106.70 = £1,355.27.
Lloyds Bank
https://www.lloydsbank.com/insurance/van.asp
Time To Answer (new customer): Almost right away.
Time To Answer (existing customer): 27 minutes.
Cost to make later changes to the policy: £40
Compulsory Excess: £150.
Review Rating On Trust Pilot:
- Excellent: 7%
- Great: 0%
- Average: 1%
- Poor: 3%
- Bad: 89%
*Lloyds do not have a review page for their van insurance services so we substituted it with the review page for their home insurance services so you could get a feel for the company. It wasn’t good.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/home-insurance.lloydsbank.com
Level Of Cover:
- Legal Assistance: +£32.98 extra.
- Breakdown Cover: +£101.99 extra.
- Personal Accident Cover: Yes.
- Windscreen Cover: Yes.
- Courtesy Vehicle: No.
Price:
Annual: £1,250.24
Monthly: 1 x £187.53 & 11 x £107.30 = £1,367.83
Van Quote Direct
https://www.vanquotedirect.co.uk/
Time To Answer (new customer): Almost right away.
Time To Answer (existing customer): 15 minutes.
Cost to make later changes to the policy: £150 + 20% of any additional or refunded premium.
Compulsory Excess: £150.
Review Rating On Trust Pilot:
- Excellent: 75%
- Great: 13%
- Average: 2%
- Poor: 1%
- Bad: 9%
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.vanquotedirect.co.uk
Level Of Cover:
- Legal Assistance: +£31.33 extra.
- Breakdown Cover: Yes.
- Personal Accident Cover: No
- Windscreen Cover: Yes.
- Courtesy Vehicle: Yes.
Price:
Annual: £1,307.98.
Monthly: 1 x £457.79 & 10 x £101.81 = £1,475.89.
Zenith Insurance
https://www.zenith-insure.com/van-insurance
Time To Answer (new customer): Almost right away.
Time To Answer (existing customer): 37 minutes.
Cost to make later changes to the policy: £40.
Compulsory Excess: £250.
Review Rating On Trust Pilot:
- Excellent: 64%
- Great: 6%
- Average: 2%
- Poor: 2%
- Bad: 26%
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/zenith-insure.com
Level Of Cover:
- Legal Assistance: +£28.50 extra.
- Breakdown Cover: +£42.75 extra.
- Personal Accident Cover: Yes.
- Windscreen Cover: Yes.
- Courtesy Vehicle: Yes.
Price: Annual: £1,328.46.
Monthly: 1 x £199.31 & 11 x £116.85 = £1,484.66.
The Best Insurers For
Quickest to cater to new customers:
All.
Of course they ALL want your money, so no doubt have an army of sales reps just waiting for your call. All answered almost immediately and faired as well as each other.
Quickest to cater to existing customers:
Van Quote Direct.
The quickest of the bunch, 15 minutes is all we had to wait to get through to a customer service advisor. Judging by how much this particular company charges for policy changes down the line (£150), it’s not surprising that they’re so keen to take your call.
Cheapest to make policy changes:
Budget & Dial Direct.
At £20, this is the cheapest price available to make changes to an existing policy. Although the cheapest, we still wouldn’t call it fair seeing as it quite literally comprises of somebody taking 5 minutes out of their day to type your new details into a computer. This used to be a free service across the board – many moons ago.
Best compulsory excess:
All but Zenith Insurance.
£150 compulsory excess is what you’ll expect to pay with any of these companies apart from Zenith, who think £250 is the fair cost of an accident on your part.
Highest reviewed on Trust Pilot:
Dial Direct.
With 8,954 reviews on Trust Pilot and rated excellent at time of writing, Dial Direct won this category almost hands down with Budget Insurance coming a close second with 6,756 reviews and also rated excellent.
Best level of man and van insurance cover:
Budget.
The best level of cover for any new man and van business is from Budget with Legal Assistance, Personal Accident Cover, Windscreen Cover and Courtesy Vehicle all included as standard. The only thing not included as standard is Breakdown Cover which can be had for £49.20.
Cheapest for man and van insurance:
Budget.
Budget at £1189.19 for the year was the cheapest of all the quotes we had on the day but to be fair, there’s only around a £200 difference between the cheapest and most expensive. The real kicker is if you need to make changes to your policy down the line where again, Budget is cheapest at only £20 compared to Van Quote Direct at £150.
The Worst Insurers For
Slowest to cater to new customers:
None.
Like we said earlier, they ALL want your money so there was no problem at all getting through to any of them initially.
Slowest to cater to existing customers:
Budget.
At 42 minutes to speak to a customer services advisor, Budget fell behind. To be fair though, this was only 5 minutes longer than Zenith, the next slowest and 27 minutes longer than Van Quote Direct, the quickest.
Most expensive to make policy changes:
Van Quote Direct.
Cripes! At £150 FOR EVERY CHANGE you want to make throughout the year, we actually thought this was a misprint to begin with. If you need to make 4 changes to your policy, expect an extra £600 + 20% of any additional or refunded premium added to your premium price. Not good.
Worst compulsory excess:
Zenith Insurance.
This is just one of those con tricks that everyone has to grin and bear. At £250, Zenith was the loser here while all the others set a £150 excess.
Lowest reviewed on Trust Pilot:
Lloyds Bank.
We actually can’t believe how badly this company is rated by their customers. With only 77 reviews on Trust Pilot at time of writing, 90% of those were 1 star (worst) with only 7% rating them as excellent. The comments didn’t inspire any kind of hope either, we recommend steering clearing of these guys.
Worst level of insurance cover:
Lloyds Bank.
With only Personal Accident Cover and Windscreen Cover coming as standard, Legal Assistance is an extra +£32.98 and Breakdown Cover is another whopping £101.99. Forget a courtesy car, that’s just a plain no!
Most expensive for man and van insurance:
Zenith Insurance.
At £1,328.46, Zenith won the most expensive quote of the day for man and van insurance but only by around £200 or so. That said, with other cheaper options available with better levels of cover, why pay the extra when you can get more for less elsewhere?
So, Which Man And Van Insurance Cover For Your Business?
Our Choice.
Of course they are all legit, reputable companies (although Lloyds is questionable according to their reviews) so if all you’re looking for is man and van insurance cover that will keep your new business legal then it’s a no brainer – just go for the cheapest available.
But if you commit to your man and van business, grow it and intend to make changes throughout the life of your policy and the level of insurance cover is important to you then it’s time for some number crunching and pondering on your part.
The figures above are of course based on a 30 year old driver with 3 points for speeding who has 5 years no claims discount on his own car. Your details will clearly be different and so your quotes will be too, but this guide should at least give you an idea of what to look for in a policy when hunting for cheap reliable man and van insurance.
If we were to pick any of these quotes we’d probably go with Dial Direct. But that’s more because we’ve used them in the past with no problems. If this hadn’t been the case then we would have most likely opted for Budget hands down. Sometimes though, it’s just comforting to pay the extra couple of quid if you’re already familiar and content with something.
If you’re seriously looking for top quality insurance cover, we’ve also written and great article on Van Insurance From Budget to help you make up your mind. Feel free to have a look.
Lloyds Bank For Van Insurance
Nope, nope – just, nope! Judging by their reviews, we wouldn’t touch Lloyds Bank Insurance with a barge pole. We’ve never dealt with them before and probably never will.
Van Quote Direct
Although initially quite competitive, Van Quote Direct would be by far the most expensive company for man and van insurance overall if you had to make any changes to your policy later. This could be something as simple as adding another driver to your policy or changing your vehicle.
At £150 + 20% of any additional or refunded premium added to your premium price for EACH AND EVERY CHANGE, that could get real expensive, real quick!
End.
Well folks, there we have it. The top 5 man and van insurance providers for your new business start up. We hope this article saves you some time and brain strain and if you found value in it and want to show some love, feel free to link to it so others can benefit from it too. Or maybe just give it a share on social media? Either way, all the best on your journey.
PS: If you’re just starting out in the van business, have a look at our handy, in-depth article on starting a van based business for top hints and tips on how to get started making a profit with your shed on wheels.