As a taxi driver, you’ll need a specialised policy that, due to the size of your vehicle and increased mileage, will more than likely cost more than a conventional policy would.
Given that your car is your livelihood and not just a mode of transport, you’ll want to make sure you can get the cover you need at a decent price.
We’ll run you through the process of insuring your vehicle and show you how to keep the costs down so that you don’t have to stress about getting cover.
In This Guide:
- What kinds of taxi insurance policies are available?
- Why is taxi insurance so expensive?
- How can I get the cheapest taxi insurance available?
What kinds of taxi insurance policies are available?
There are three basic types of car insurance policy available for taxi drivers: ‘policy only’, ‘named driver’ and ‘any driver’.
‘Policy only’ cover will be the cheapest, but bear in mind that the cost will go up as more names are added to the policy.
‘Named driver’ insurance is ideal if you just own one taxi and are the only driver of it.
An ‘any driver’ policy, as the name suggests, covers anyone to driver your taxi, so long as they are above a set age (usually 25). This kind of cover is, as you would expect, the most expensive.
Please note that these are just the taxi specific aspects of the cover – you’ll still have all of the options you’d get when insuring a conventional car like third party only; third party, fire and theft; and fully comprehensive.
Other things to consider are whether you’re just insuring a single vehicle, or whether you need to look at fleet cover.
The kind of policy you can get will also depend on whether you’re driving a public hire (like a hackney carriage) or a private hire (like a booking-only minicab) vehicle. As a general rule, public hire taxis are slightly more expensive to insure, but this is not always the case – given that the vehicles themselves tend to be newer, and the drivers older, when compared to private hire cabs, insurers tend to look on them quite favourably.
Why is taxi insurance so expensive?
Taxi drivers, due to the nature of their work, rack up pretty serious mileage, often at unsociable hours and in built-up areas, statistically increasing the risk of accident and therefore the price of insurance.
Often, taxis are quite large, to accommodate a higher number of passengers, and this pushes them up into a higher insurance bracket, further increasing the cost of the premiums on offer. This will be particularly relevant if you drive a minibus or Multi-Person Vehicle (MPV).
You won’t have to pay totally over the odds though to insure your taxi – there are always ways to keep costs down.
How can I get the cheapest taxi insurance available?
Aside from choosing a smaller vehicle and building up a no claims bonus, the best way to save money on your taxi insurance is to shop around and compare online.
Use a taxi insurance comparison service like ours to find competitive quotes on the market. All you need to do is let us know what kind of policy you’re after and we’ll do the leg work for you, so all you need to do is pick the one you want and start saving right away.
