Insuring two RS 6s for business use

[ChrisB]

Hi Jon / anyone else,

I'm looking for some friendly advice from the forum. My business partner and I both have an RS 6 - Mug blue saloon for me, Avus Avant for him.

Problem is insurance with business use for both cars for both of us to drive either. We were insured with Norwich on an upgrade from S8s so the true cost was kind of hidden, then at renewal time we got quoted £5500 from Norwich, or less (about £3000 IIRC) with another company (can't remember who, was through our broker - may have been Scot Am?) and changed to them.

They've since sent through the paperwork and loads of the details are incorrect, so when our broker rang them to correct them, they got all twichy about insuring us for the price. To cut a long story short, currently neither car is garaged (business partner's garage is too small & I'm renting while my new house is built), and they picked up on that and just said that although they'd admit to getting the details wrong and not charge us more than we agreed to pay, they wouldn't cover us for theft and damage overnight - not a good situation.

So, we're back with NU for five and a half grand a year. Any suggestions for knocking that down a bit? We're both over 30, both have 60% no claims (although I do have some no fault claims in the last 3 years, they didn't reduce my no claims?!!!). I've currently got 3 points for Double White Line (plod's fallback because he didn't have the radar up and running... [img]images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]).

Oh, and both cars are registered to the company (Limited) on the V5s.

Ta!

[Dave]

Hmmm.. difficult mate,

it's the business use that kills... they have a much higher risk factor than privatly used car.. possibly because business cars are used more and do more miles.

The only other option would be to insure them yourselves, which is probably more cost effective beacuse your fleet is too small for a large plicy.. generally your need 10 cars or more for a big discount.

What I would do is take out your own insurance with an any driver policy (over 30 to reduce costs) and then pay yourself a bonus to cover the cost.( dividend what-ever). You could be looking at a £1500 saving

Dave

[Jon]

give me a ring on the number in my sig and I will go through them top to bottom, no one will insure them any driver due to them being group 20 so that one is out of the window (sorry Dave). but you may be on the wrong level of business cover (i.e too high) so there could be a saving there. [img]images/graemlins/080402call_prv.gif[/img]

[Andiroo]

Give them to yourselves on a Directors Loan Account, you will find the tax implication of that to then charging use back to company, and furthermore the saving of company car tax will individually save you a mint - and also make them easier and cheaper to insure [img]images/graemlins/thumbs.gif[/img]

Andiroo

[Dave]

Hey Andiroo,

I love the idea of a directors loan account to avoid the tax,

can you send me more details or exapnd a bit more
Cheers
Dave

[Andiroo]

You take on a Loan Account for the current market value of the vehicles, and it's basically classed as a payable dividend if you want (if you're profitable [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]), or a loan over a specific period. Depending how you do this it will be classed as a benefit, and will therefore be taxable, but if you're clever the tax will not be much more than you're companyu car tax now. Then you charge the car usage back to the company on mileage allowance [img]images/graemlins/thumbs.gif[/img]

You're accountant should be able to show you the best way to do this for your particular setup. In any case you will not be worse off, but the car will be yours [img]images/graemlins/thumbs.gif[/img]

Andiroo

[Dave]

Thanks.. I'll give that some serious consideration

Dave [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ChrisB]

Thanks everyone, some nice ideas there. Jon, I'll call you when it's a bit less hectic at work if that's OK (we're stacked out here for a couple of weeks).

Cheers guys! [img]images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]