How to get your hire van insured

Insuring your hire van is easy:

 You have two options.    

1. You can either use your own insurance policy (provided you have one), or
2.  you can purchase a short term policy from us.

 Private car insurance policies, which a majority of our customers have, can be restrictive when it comes to commercial hire vehicles. Even “open drive” insurance policy types do not apply to commercial vehicles. So if you wish to use your own policy, you must do what is known as a transfer.

To organise a transfer to a hire van or truck:

Begin by contacting your broker or insurance company. Explain to them that you need to rent a van or truck and they will request some details. Common details needed for the insurance transfer to the rental vehicle are as follows:

• Make and model
• Engine size
• Value
• Payload

The insurer can usually offer two types of transfer:

1. Temporary Substitution. This transfers the cover from the car to the rental van. The car cannot be driven for the duration of the hire.
2. Temporary Addition.  If you need to use your car, this covers the van in addition to your own car. It is easier and cheaper to arrange a substitution.

What vehicles can I transfer my private policy to?

Again this depends on the insurance company, typically you should be able to transfer onto any vehicles that can be driver on a car licence, this covers all our rental vans and light hire trucks. Your insurer will not aggree to a transfer onto a vehicle above the car licence limit. So if you want to trive a bigger hire truck and have the licence you need to buy truck insurance from us.

Do you have any tips to for getting a transfer off my insurance company?

Have all the relevant vehicle details at hand. If it is a house move and your registered address is changing, make sure the insurance company are aware of the fact, they really cannot refuse then.

If you are moving goods, make sure the insurance company knows that they are “personal household goods”.

Another tip is be forthright. Do not ask if they will do a transfer for you, tell them that you need a transfer arranged for day X at time Y. Always ask what the charge is. One insurance company typically looks for 61 Euro for a 1 day transfer, which is madness. If the charge is up to 30 euro for a one day transfer, we recommend taking it. If it is higher, you would be better off taking ours and saving the hassle of a transfer.

Insurance companies are all about risk. They are aware that their policyholder may be at higher risk in a rental vehicle than when driving their own car. This is down to many customers being unfamiliar with the dimensions of hire vans and trucks.

Why do we offer van rental insurance to customers?

The above transfer examples do not take into account the differing policies of insurance companies. Some insurers are great and will organise a transfer quickly and at no charge, whilst others can be awkward and expensive for cover. As a result, sometimes it's just easier to purchase insurance through us and incur the extra (or lesser) cost.

Final thoughts: Some insurance companies are great....

... however typically lower cost insurers are far more restrictive than the rest. We do not like singling out companies negatively, so we will not name the worst.

On the opposite end, the best company for transfers (by far) is FBD. They will usually allow a transfer and at no cost. The staff are always efficient and send faxes when they say they will. Never have we seen an FBD customer sitting in our offices waiting for confirmation more than 10 minutes or so.

Aforementioned low cost providers will typically take 3 hours to get a fax through (if it arrives), ask multiple security questions (over and over again!), treat the transfer with suspicion, request the assistance of a supervisor, and charge for the transfer if they finally agree.

Article Update 2010 : It is getting more difficult to organise your own insurance onto a rental van or hire truck.

This article was originally written over 18 months ago, at the time the information was current and correct. Over this time many insurance companies have changed their approach to dealing with commercial vehicle transfers and its not really good news for their customers. I'll break down some of the changes below and the insurance companies themselves.

1. FBD Insurance : Easiest Transfers by far, transfers are done for free and with zero hassle.
2. Hibernian / Aviva :  Will not transfer car cover onto vans.
3. AXA insurance: Still pretty good for doing insurance transfers, typically charges between €25 euro and €38 euro to transfer your car insurance.
4. AA Insurance : Pretty good to deal with, the AA act as brokers for many other companies. The AA typically set a 48 hour maximum on insurance transfers onto vans. The transfer costs depend on the underwriter of the policy.
5. Quinn Direct : Will only transfer insurance onto a van if the customers registered address is changing.
6. Cornmarket: All good here, typically the broker for Teachers ect and very flexible, transfers usually free.

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