What many people in the industry don’t realise is that they are not getting the maximum benefit from their motor trade insurance policy. It’s only when it comes time to claim that they realise that they didn’t have adequate cover.

It’s essential to ensure when paying for cover that you are getting the right protection for your business. Every workshop and dealership will have similar needs, but the amount of those needs may vary. What is good for one may not be good for another and the only way to determine if you have the right cover is to do a risk assessment to determine potential problems and how to avoid them, while ensuring that you are covered should something happen.

There are a few very important things that your policy should cover, things that can not only set you back a fortune if you don’t have adequate cover, but that can leave your business in ruin through customers being unhappy.

The first is having road risks cover. If you intend driving customer vehicles to test drive them to find out what faults they have or to test drive them to find out if they are worth buying, you need this cover. Road risks enables you to drive any customer vehicle and should you be involved in an accident, you can get the vehicle repaired or replaced quickly.

Don’t’ get caught out, many businesses make the mistake of choosing the minimum cover, third party or third party fire and theft, now while these will cover the other property or vehicle, they do not cover the customers vehicle, which means you have to pay to have the repairs carried out or worse, you have to buy another vehicle for the customer.

You must always have adequate public liability in place. If you have received online quotes you will notice that this has been omitted completely or the quote doesn’t offer near enough cover should a customer or visitor injure themselves while visiting your property. You need to bear in mind that anyone injuring themselves at your property can claim for loss of income, mental distress and medical expenses and this can amount to thousands of which you are legally responsible to pay.

Don’t make the mistake that many businesses have made with their motor trade insurance policy and not double check that you have adequate cover should something happen. You can be left in financial ruin if you are forced to pay out of your own pocket because the cover you have will only pay a very small portion of the claim.