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Right leave my misaligned moral compass out of this. Employee hits his own car in a company car, claims for damage to his car from the company policy. Who pays to fix the company car's damage ?? Company Insurance ? Maybe but expect (in my company anyway) for me to come along and recover my losses - i.e. Uninsured losses from the employee, plus a lasting hatred of that employee :-(
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> Uninsured losses from the employee, plus a lasting hatred of that employee :-(
woo - hold on unless you have explicitly made me sign a form saying that you will recover uninsured losses from me in the event of an incident before I take out the company car, you dont have a leg to stand on.
Try and recover losses from me boss and I will have your rse in front of a tribunal citing constructive dismissal. AND damages for stress.
you will be working to pay off the compensation for the rest of your life.
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Sorry try the rational (as I see it) approach. I give a chap a job - pay him a reasonable salary on the basis that that will convert into profit. I have a price structure that factors in his salary and on-costs as well as purchasing a decent "pool car" ( a new Honda Civic 3 years ago) as I have to comply with H&S legislation as regards a safe work place. I also, at great cost, insure him and others to drive this car. He then damages my car - which means time off the road and a cost I may bear through the prohibitive cost of claiming from the insurance (this actually happened last year when one of the staff reversed into a wall - owned by us and it cost us £400.00 to fix it without claiming) he then reverses my car into his (his fault no quibble) and he tries to get me to pay (through my insurance or paying direct to fix - this is the real business world remember) to fix his car. So through his negligence I end up paying to repair his car and mine. Sorry this is not what Insurance is for.
Anyway I feel better now :-)
AE,
Guess what as of tomorrow !
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I think I am with PU on this. I think in our company (fleet of thousands) I'd have no leg to stand on to argue either. We are allowed a few accidents in a few years before we have to contribute.
Lets turn this around a bit.... I have a car with damage to it in a supermarket but nobody to blame. I then drive the company car into it to blame them and claim.
In the "real" example that starts this thread there was no damage to the company car despite damaging the employees car.... so how do we know the company car hit the other one at all?
The employee in the example was not just the third party though.
Lets forget the company car... I have two cars (say) that are insured in my name and my wife's name. Both allowed to drive each others cars. I then smash into the other car with the other. How do I claim? And would I? Try filling in the claim forms without raising questions.... I was reversing and smashed into my car.
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"Try filling in the claim forms without raising questions.... I was reversing and smashed into my car. "
Perfectly legit claim, unless specifically disallowed by the policy. Just expect to have to provide good evidence etc., and of course take the knock in terms of loss of NCB, raised premiums etc.
Not much difference to a claim on the household contents policy if you damage a picture while falling down the stairs, as I did.
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irt rtj
That then becomes insurance fraud, which if correct is very serious, and if not correct is a very serious allegation by someone!!!!!!!
As for your final point, that is no different to many cases I had to deal with of trucks from the same company having accidents in the depot/yard - insurance company pays out.
Edited by R75 on 15/12/2008 at 18:50
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Oh well the customer will have to pay then (or does that make me a running dog of capitalism as well as the winner "Employer Of The Year - Not" award?)
Edited by Pugugly on 15/12/2008 at 18:53
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R75, I know that is fraud and illegal - but no damage to the company car according to the original post.
If this was genuine then yes it's a legitimate claim but my employer at some point expects a company car driver who has too many accidents to contribute.
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Not wanting to take this off on a tangent but to demonstrate what people might expect (this is true).
Someone left their company laptop in their car on the drive. The boot was full so it was left on the back seat. Laptop stolen through a broken window. The employee wanted to claim via the company for their personal camera in the laptop case. I'd have charged them for the laptop too - leaving it on view on the back seat.
Employees need to be more careful when in charge of company property.
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Glad I don't work for "Blackadder, Scrooge and Blackadder, Solicitors."
;-)
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But we do not know the renumeration package ;-) If it was say £100k+ pa but you were liable for damage to company property or whatever we might take the risk. You might like working there for all you know and being a careful driver should have no problems.
You might even get a nice bonus at Christmas of a turnip.
Baldrick
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irt rtj70
Should the employer expect a contribution or do they supply additional training? How many company car drivers, driver on company business, actually receive any sort of training?
There is only one company I have worked for that has actively sought training for all its drivers, be they truck, van or car drivers. I was trained as an assessor for them and had to check on my depots drivers on a regular basis. This was either time triggered or accident/near miss triggered. If their driving did not meet the expected standard then I would give them some pointers, if they still failed to meet the standard then i could send them to an external training school for additional training. This applied to the sales force in their cars as well as the van and truck drivers.
There is no way on earth that a tribunal would uphold yours or Pug's case if you had not implemented something like the above first.
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Sorry, PU, I think you're absolutely wrong on this one. It's *exactly* what insurance is for. If your business is so tightly run then you need to provide more for contingencies - that's why most small businesses fail; they don't build in enough spare for contingencies.
Imagine that both these cars are Aston Martins (quite possible in an upmarket City estate agency). And imagine that the driver was doing 35mph as he drove past his own car in the street, misjudged, and wrote BOTH of them off. Total cost, £100k +.
It hurts, it really hurts. But are you REALLY saying that you'd sue him for losses? And expect to win??? (Anyway, the driver has no assets, his AM is on finance; deposit came out of last year's 200% bonus, no bonuses this year.)
It's generally bad luck on the employer - if your employee has an accident, you cough up. Isn't it?
Under these circumstances, I don't see where the problem is; there appears to be no damage to the employer's car; why cannot OP's friend claim on his own insurance? Answer: because if he tells the truth (and for this discussion to have any merit we must assume the truth is told) on his accident form, his ins. co. will claim against his employer's ins. co. At which point, PU will sue his poor office boy for tens of thousands.
When the office boy will already see increased premiums next year for having had a fault accident (again, assuming he tells his ins. co the truth).
I feel for the poor guy, I really do.
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In fact, the moral of PU's tale is that PU needn't bother insuring his cars at all. It is for his employees to provide THIRD PARTY insurance for his cars.
And they'd be mad not to, for if they didn't, he'd sue them if they caused any damage.
Sorry, that just doesn't add up.
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Tradition demands that we kick a man when he's down - sorry PU -
Let's assume the driver has comprehensive insurance on his own car, and he puts in a claim to his own insurer.
He will have to give details of the accident, the other party, and ultimately that party's insurer.
Given that his car was parked at the time, will his insurer not just recover its losses from the other, at fault, party's insurer - i.e. the firm's insurer? It will be no good him saying "I don't want you to pursue the other party" - it's not up to him at that point.
I think that's pretty much Mappy's point too.
The fact that it's his own car he's run into is just bad luck - would you take the same view if he'd hit someone else's?
Anyway here's an idea for you - I used to work for a (Scottish) company that charged the employee the first £100 of any claim unless all costs could be recovered from a third party. (I earned £3,300 a year at the time so this was serious money). For every accident-free year, we earned a £20 reduction; after 5 years you could have a free bang! The counter was reset to £100 after any fault-accident. This was of course made clear in the conditions of employment.
Employees who fell foul of this would often write to the transport manager explaining why they should not have to pay. The answer was always the same - "would you like to send us a cheque or shall we deduct it from your salary?"
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Looks like me and mapmaker agree on this one as much as we disagree on the merits of Vectras ;-).
One of the reasons I don't take a company car is that I read the T&Cs and lo and behold the management reserve the right to deduct the cost of claims from my wages. I don't think they've ever done this, but it's there in black and white, and I didn't fancy becoming a test case.
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In response to R75.
1. My example of the laptop was resolved by providing a new laptop - but the employee did not get a new digital camera.
2. No there is no training - we used to have RoSPA defensive driving courses periodically but they are no more.
3. If we misfueled a car and the engine or whatever broke they can charge us - it's in the agreement for the company car.
As for PU's "employer" not needing insurance... well our fleet is self insured and therefore only requires basic 3rd party cover. When my Golf GTI was stolen it came off my cost centre.
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AE Guess what as of tomorrow !
You need a good office manager PU ......
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as well aspurchasing a decent "pool car" ( a new Honda Civic 3 years ago) as I have to comply with H&S legislation as regards a safe work place. I also at great cost insure him and others to drive this car. He then damages my car
So why have you got them the pool car? Is it a treat for them? Something for them to use on their lunch break to pop and get their smoked salmon rolls? Did you get it for them to go and pick their elderly mother up and take her shopping after work, or even better during work?
No? I thought not, it is their to make their work time more efficient so you can maximise the profit from them.
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