To a) say he can't use the car and b) take the keys with me?

[Hangraut]

My DS has the use of my car.

It's an old banger which is insured SDP and commuting only.

I usually drop him at work as it's on my way. It's a 5 min drive or a 30 min walk.

His job is partly office based but also involves site visits, up to 15-20 places in a day. Normally he goes out with a colleague in their car.

I am away for the next 3 days. He has just sent me a msg asking if he can use the car for work this week.

I have said no. He's not insured and if he drives it he is in breach of the policy, we risk having our policy voided and not being able to get cover in future.

He said he doesn't see how anyone will know . Although I have said no I don't trust him to do as I say...on that basis WiBU to also take the keys, even though this means he'll be stuck with no car for the rest of the week?

At my work you can't claim mileage expenses unless you submit your insurance document to say you have full insurance for business use.

”I trust him to drive with his friends because he's insured....I can't take the risk of him driving uninsured.”

I don’t think anyone has suggested you should let him drive uninsured.

”I certainly wouldn't drive anywhere for my employers unless I had something specific in writing as part of my contract or a variation thereof which said how I would be reimbursed and what the expectation was in terms of travel.” No one is expecting you to. It would be very odd if there was no policy covering these things, and surely it’s DS’s concern to worry about how he’d get reimbursed or whether it should be specified in his contract rather than yours?

You are perfectly within your rights not to let him use it, obviously, but your logic seems odd to me!

Hangraut it won’t be in his contract, it will be in their company policy information. My company has an expenses policy which outlines what I can and can’t claim for, how much I can spend on certain things (no first class train tickets, how much I can pay for a hotel in and outside of London), the rate of mileage the company pay out (40p per mile) the rate you get if you have a company car. My contract states I have two places of work and any travel outside of these comes under my mileage claims. I can then choose whether to drive my personal car or use public transport and cabs to get places.

Our expenses policy is part of the employee handbook on the intranet - the contents of which form part of our contract. That's been the case at both the tiny and gigantic employers I've had.

It would be unusual for your contract to state mileage rates etc, because then any time the HMRC rates changed everyone would need to have new contracts issued. It's much more usual to include these as part of a separate policies document available to all staff, along with the standard forms to complete to claim expenses. At most there might be an overview of some of the key policies with a caveat that the full policies are to be found in xyz location.

I'm puzzled why you think paying travel expenses - a standard practice - is so out of the question. Reimbursing travel expenses at the approved rates has no tax consequences for employees. They have to track their mileage in order to claim the miles (you can't just say "I did some driving, give me some money"), and it's in the interests of the employer to track when they reach 10,000 and reduce the rate because otherwise the employer faces additional costs and administration too. Approved rates include wear and tear, not just fuel.

Whereas providing company cars is incredibly expensive from a tax perspective, which in turns creates greater administration costs. Hence why their prevalence has reduced.

I don't understand why you're getting so concerned about his expenses policy. It's his responsibility as a working adult to familiarise himself with his terms of employment, just like it's his responsibility not to break the law by driving without valid insurance. He needs to be sorting out both things for himself, instead of shifting it all to you to worrying about. He should be responsible enough to navigate the conditions of his own employment.

I'd be more concerned about his ethical position. It should be enough to stop you in your tracks to know that you would have done the wrong thing regardless of whether anybody else may or may not know or find out.

I've never had anything in my contract about travel, just details of the normal place of work. I have however always been covered by a travel policy that set out in detail what expenses could be claimed and how to do so. I managed insurance for my last organisation and we had tight processes to make sure that the appropriate car insurance was in place for all work travel. This was totally in our interest as some of the liability sits with the organisation, by making sure that everyone had primary insurance we could reduce the cost we paid for excess coverage. I imagine this is also the reason why your ds's company don't let him drive their fleet cars as setting a minimum age will again reduce their insurance costs. However if they didn't specify in his contract that he needed to provide a vehicle for transport while undertaking work duties they can't take action against him so he should be able to tell them that he will not be able to go offsite without recrimination.

I totally agree that it's not worth potentially invalidating your insurance, and sadly if you don't trust your son not to take your car and use it at work you will need to take your keys.

This seems massively over complicated.
1 forget whether you believe an employer should provide a car for travel.
2 he doesn’t need a new policy. If he is your named driver he will be covered by you adding business mileage. You can check before doing this to be sure. Get him to pay an admin fee. Just ring them.
3 if you’re not prepared to call them because you don’t want him using your car at work, don’t ask us to agree with you. It’s clearly not up for discussion.

I do understand how insurance works. As matters stand he has no cover and if he or I use it for anything other than commuting we are in breach.

Amending the policy is at the discretion of the insurers and there may be as mentioned above an issue over whether they will still be prepared to treat him as named driver. So it's not a given insurance can be changed over, nor what it would cost.

In light of this he's decided he doesn't want to drive as he isn't willng to incur extra costs. Our policy renews soon, I have said we will look at arranging cover for this use on the new policy depending on cost.

I think mileage rates for work mileage can differ dramatically, some pay 45p s mike and some 15p s mile, When I got a mileage rate the costs were more than the mileage rate, It needs to cover more than fuel costs as there will be breakdown cover, road tax, depreciation, servicing costs, repair costs. I’m reluctant to take a job where they want me to us my car nowadays.

Goodness what a lot of fuss.

Ring insurance, ask how much it is for you and named driver to have business cover for a week, tell son how much it is and he either pays it or doesn't do it. It's a ten minute conversation

Nokid

Amending the policy is st the discretion of the insurer. OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out if they will use this discretion. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

It's not a given what amending the policy will cost. It's at the discretion of the insurer. Again, OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out how much it will cost. Much better to hypothesise here rather than call the insurer. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

Amending the policy is st the discretion of the insurer. OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out if they will use this discretion. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

It's not a given what amending the policy will cost. It's at the discretion of the insurer. Again, OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out how much it will cost. Much better to hypothesise here rather than call the insurer. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

What???????????

It's the ops car. Son is named driver. Wants to use the car for business for 3 days. Call insurer and ask if it can be done and how much it will cost.

Why can't she call her own insurers about her own car? What on earth are you talking about?

Lol @Antigon

Sorry a bit slow tonight 😁

Tbh sounds like his employers problem. Not yours.

Amending the policy is st the discretion of the insurer. OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out if they will use this discretion. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

It's not a given what amending the policy will cost. It's at the discretion of the insurer. Again, OP cannot be expected to call the insurer to find out how much it will cost. Much better to hypothesise here rather than call the insurer. Because the discretion totally belongs to the insurer.

Eh

Surely OP needs to call to find out the cost of amending her policy, because it's her policy!

The insurer will either say 'yes it will cost £X' or they will say 'sorry we won't insure your names driver for that'

AIBU to think that no-one understands sarcasm anymore?

Antigon :o

AIBU to think that no-one understands sarcasm anymore?

I understand sarcasm. The problem with Mumsnet and sarcasm is that not only is it often hard to read tone on a thread, but there are that many people posting batshit crazy stuff that we become desensitised. It didn't immediately jump out as sarcasm to me, simply because so many people post shite, it was plausible that it may have been shite.

Apologies for missing it

True dat meadow :)

It's really simple - OP has a car, OP's son has occasional use of his mum's car if it suits her and he's met any prerequisites she has stipulated (tidy bedroom, hoovered the house, not pissed in the shower or whatever OP sees fit).
OP has said no. If son wants to go driving around for work racking up 200miles per day at times then he can go buy his own car and insurance cover etc. Given that he is in a proper job and earning money he should do so. Though when he finds out the true cost of all this and what racking up that kind of mileage will do to what will likely be his pride and joy I expect his tune will change.
His work employed him knowing he was not old enough to drive their pool vehicles and did not make it a condition of employment that he had his own suitable vehicle (and that he would be required to use it) so it is their problem to find transport for him or allow him to use (reembursed) public transport and the associated extra time this will take.
Or they can have him in the office doing office work till his colleague is available to buddy up again.

It’s your car and you don’t want him to use it. The discussion doesn’t need to continue beyond that and you don’t need to justify your decision.

Out of interest are you with Admiral? Wanted to add someone for a few days recently and was told the admin fee would be £20 and then there would be the cost on top. We said forget it!

We're with Admiral and added an extra driver a few weeks ago. It was cheaper to add him for the year than it was for just 28 days! the cost for a month was over twice the annual price. Made no sense

Every chance he could be caught.if he is not required for work normally then its not a problem now.
Take keys if you dont trust him

Not with Admiral.

Just to update, I have checked the cost of adding business cover. This will be £200-300 for the year and that is based on no more than 5000 business miles. If he is likely to do more than that the cost will be even higher.

So not free, and not an insignificant sum either.

You’re right to be cautious. A friend of mine was driving between two work sites and was driven into. They were then classed as driving without insurance and got six points on their license, which was enough for them to lose their license.