Insurance is Essential for Successful Driving Schools

A reliable vehicle is the backbone — the driving force, if you will — of a driving school's business. Here's how to fully protect your car (or fleet), plus the other insurance cover you should consider. Driving schools are all about defensive driving and following the code of the road. But teaching people (especially nervous 17-year-olds) how to drive can be a risky business. This insurance guide will help steer your driving school to success.

Your business is entirely dependent on cars. Obviously. You can't teach parallel parking without a vehicle. That's why it's so important to have Car Insurance that goes beyond the bare essentials.

Your vehicles should be insured with commercial cover, which applies to cars that are used for business purposes. This will provide for just about any form of financial loss related to your vehicle, as well as damage caused by you to another person and/or their property.

When considering options for car insurance, remember that a vehicle that's used for business-related purposes will spend more time on the road, so the insurance premium could be higher than the premium on vehicles used for personal purposes.

But... and here's the part that keeps driving school owners and instructors up at night — there's also the added complication of having your vehicle(s) driven by learner drivers. To make sure you're adequately covered when your nervous students are at the wheel, discuss the following options with your insurer:

• Standard basic vehicle excess so that you won't have to pay a percentage-based excess because, after all, accidents can happen when learners are learning.
• Third-party liability cover which can protect you against claims resulting from accidental death, injury or damage to property of a third party.
• Passenger liability cover which deals with secondary trauma or emotional shock caused by witnessing an accident.

Public Liability Insurance takes care of a range of driving school risk scenarios, including:

• accidental death
• damage or loss to property
• illness and/or bodily injury

These situations could be the result of an interaction with driving instructors (or even other employees who don't teach), or from an incident that occurs on your property. It's unpleasant to think about it, but this cover could save you and your business from financial disaster if the worst were to happen.

Also, look into employer's liability, which would cover you in the event of an employee's injury, illness and/or death while working.

Other Handy Add-Ons

A reliable, roadworthy vehicle is the MVP of your business, so it can't hurt to add car hire to your cover list. Consider the loss of use option, which gives you a cash payout that you can use to rent a car from a supplier of your choice, should your car(s) be involved in an accident or get stolen.

Then there's also an option called 'business assist', which includes benefits like roadside assistance and emergency medical assistance. This would be very useful for any business (like yours) that's on the road all the time.