Many van drivers and commercial vehicle owners often rely heavily on their vehicles as a source of income. For this reason it is important that you look after your vehicle well and make sure you are sufficiently insured should anything go wrong.

One of the most important factors of insuring your commercial vehicle is making sure you have the right cover for you vehicle and it's intended use.

Commercial Insurance
Commercial vehicle use is often defined as:

The use of a vehicle for transporting goods or passengers for reward; hiring a vehicle, or use of the vehicle for paid driving instruction.

The second two points in that statement are fairly self explanatory, but the first part can be somewhat ambiguous. Transporting passengers includes services such as taxis or chauffeur driven vehicles. The transporting of goods can include delivery items such as pizzas or flowers or moving stock from a supplier to your shop. Some insurers can provide commercial insurance only for transporting light goods which can save you money.

Fleet Insurance
If you or your business has more than one van or commercial vehicle, you an save money (and time) by getting fleet insurance. This can be anything from a couple of delivery vans to an entire road haulage fleet. Again, make sure the cover offered is sufficient for the types of use of your vehicles.

Goods in Transit
Most commercial policies will not automatically provide cover for any goods or tools in your vehicle. "Goods in transit" insurance can normally be purchased separately and added on to your existing commercial insurance. Note that the amount insured may be a limited sum for each vehicle and will based on the value of the contents. Goods in transit insurance will provide cover for:

* Theft (while in transit)
* Loss (while in transit)
* Damage caused by accidents during transit
* Damage caused during transit

Commercial Insurance Costs
Because of the wide variety of commercial vehicles on the road, commercial insurance calculations and prices can be significantly different from regular private car insurance. Most vans and commercial vehicles have an increased capacity of to cause damage or injury because of their size and weight. This represents a higher risk for the insurance company as they are likely to be required to make a bigger payout in the event of an accident. Other factors considered include laden weight of the vehicle; nature of the load(s) to be transported, addition of special equipment etc.

Despite these factors, which can make commercial vehicle insurance expensive, there are still things you can do to try and get cheaper commercial vehicle insurance.

* Keep your can in a garage or other secure location overnight
* Increase your voluntary excess (but make sure you can pay it in the event of a claim)
* Fit a Thatcham approved immobiliser
* If you need other drivers to drive the vehicle, put them down as named drivers rather than having an "any driver" policy
* Try to avoid making claims where possible