Are you a budding entrepreneur who is considering to open a business to pursue your passion in everything related to automotive? If so, congratulations – you are one step closer to business success.
Automotive industry enjoys relatively strong growth in the past year, and the outlook for 2015 is positive. To highlight, the aftermarket trend is even more positive.
Obviously, challenges are present, but if you are a true entrepreneur (I know you are!) you know that problems are there to solve and if you have the answer to the challenges ahead, you win.
While you are preparing for the launch of your motor business, you need to be sure that you don’t miss a thing, especially in things related to legal, taxes and finances.
In this article, I’m not going to talk in detail about how to prime your auto business launch. Instead, please allow me to remind you one more item that is often neglected by entrepreneurs. This ‘poor thing’ is called insurance.
Insurance is probably the best kind of expense for your company, because although it seems that you don’t need it, you will be grateful having it if bad things happen to your business.
What is the most important insurance coverage for my motor business?
You will need the typical insurance coverages that are taken out by every small business, such as commercial or business premise insurance. But the two of the most important motor vehicle-related insurances you should buy are motor trade insurance and commercial fleet insurance.
Why are they important, especially if your business is related to motor trade, such as buy-and-sell cars, auto repair, and car valeting? Let’s talk about each.
Motor trade insurance
A motor trade insurance is the type of insurance bought by a small business owner whose business involve in anything-motor-vehicles: car dealership, car repair garage, car valeting service, MOT centre and other motor vehicle-related businesses.
The type of motor trade insurance policies includes third party (mandatory, for all kind of motor businesses,) road risk (if you drive the vehicles you don’t own – e.g. Valeting – more info here,) and combined (all-inclusive.)
This type of insurance is required by companies of any sizes – in fact, it is required by law. So, even if you are running your business part-time, at home, you will still need this type of insurance.
Commercial fleet insurance
Another type of insurance you need to take to protect your business vehicles – company cars, service fleets or retail fleets – is commercial fleet insurance.
This type of insurance is especially beneficial for you who run a business that utilizes vehicles for operational, such as package delivery service, plumbing service, florist, mobile food truck, moving service, and so on.
How to choose the right one?
By now, you must have already known the basics in motor trade and commercial fleet insurance. However, knowing what’s covered by those insurances is one thing; another thing would be how to choose the right one for your startup.
Here’s what I mean by ‘right’: You need to take insurances which coverages you exactly need, at the lowest price possible, from the most reputable insurance company.
In order to find the right one, you have two options to take: Do your own research or get recommendations.
Doing your own research means you need to compare insurance plans from one company to another. Using insurance comparison sites can help you, but be warned for ‘sponsored’ listing, which may impact the objectivity of the comparison.
Perhaps a better way is by getting recommendations from those you trust: Your colleagues, your business partners or your friends and family.
Takeaway
When you have arrived at decision time, be sure you choose a reputable company that is a specialist, such as Nash Warren Insurance, which offers quality, cost-effective motor trade and commercial insurance coverages – among other types of insurance.
One thing to bear in mind: When you choose an insurance company, you need to make sure that you have full, genuine support from start to finish. You don’t want to be misled in considering your options, or even worse, getting lured to take coverages you don’t need.