Hire and reward insurance for man and van firms

Hire and reward is the insurance term for using your vehicle to carry goods, or people, in exchange for payment. Some insurers call it courier insurance or haulage cover. It is the same idea: the stuff in the back is not yours, and someone is paying you to move it.

Every van policy is sold on a class of use, and there are four common ones (they are in the box). The first two are for personal driving. Carriage of own goods is the one plumbers and builders buy, because it covers their own tools and materials. None of the three covers carrying a customer’s furniture for a fee.

A house move, a flat clearance, an eBay collection for a stranger, a student’s boxes up the M1: if they pay you and it is their stuff, it is hire and reward. It does not matter that you only do it on Saturdays or that it is a small job.

Honest bit: it is the most expensive class of use. Insurers price it that way because you spend more time on the road, and you are carrying other people’s belongings. That price gap is exactly why some people quietly skip it.

Confused.com puts it plainly: if you only have private van insurance but use the van for hire and reward, any claim for something that happens while you are working won’t be covered. Admiral says the same about the wrong class of use: you may not be able to claim if something happens to your van.

That is the bit people miss. The policy is not cancelled the moment you take a paid job. It just does not cover that job. So the day you clip a parked car with a customer’s three-piece suite in the back is the day you find out you were paying for cover that did not apply.

Telling the insurer the wrong use to get a cheaper price makes it worse, not better. Confused.com warns that misdescribing your class of use can invalidate your cover, let the insurer cancel the policy or charge the correct price, and leave you declaring it to insurers in future.

And “I’ve got business use” is not the answer either. Business use for carriage of own goods covers your tools, not your customer’s wardrobe. If the paperwork does not say hire and reward, or carriage of goods for hire or reward, ask the insurer to confirm in writing.

The box has the published numbers. Both sources are mostly pricing courier and delivery vans, because that is where most hire and reward policies go. A man-and-van doing house moves is quoted on the same class of use, but your own figure will move with the things below.

What pushes it up: age and experience (by SimplyQuote’s figures, drivers under 25 can pay close to double what drivers over 35 pay), an urban postcode (roughly £400 a year more than a rural one, by its figures), and claims history (each claim adding roughly 20 to 40 per cent at renewal). Higher mileage and a higher insurance group van push it up too.

What brings it down: parking off the road overnight in a garage or on a drive, approved security such as an alarm, immobiliser or tracker, a higher voluntary excess, fewer miles, and paying for the year up front rather than monthly. SimplyQuote reckons paying annually works out roughly 8 to 12 per cent cheaper.

Do not pick third party only because it sounds like the cheap option. On Confused.com’s April to June 2026 data it was the dearest of the three cover levels for hire and reward, at £3,011 against £2,275 for fully comprehensive. That is partly down to who buys each level, so get a price for both.

On its own, a hire and reward van policy covers the van, not the load. Confused.com says hire and reward only covers your van, not the items you are carrying. Some insurers bolt goods in transit on as an extra, so check your schedule to see whether it is there and what the limit is. For the customer’s belongings you need goods in transit, and the goods in transit guide goes through what that pays out on and the exclusions that bite.

Goods in transit is not a legal requirement, but without it a dropped telly comes out of your pocket. Public liability is not a legal requirement in the UK either, according to Simply Business, but plenty of letting agents, offices and councils will ask to see it before you get through the door. It pays for the bannister you scuff and the person you catch with a wardrobe.

Employers’ liability is the one the law does insist on. GOV.UK says you must have it as soon as you become an employer, for at least £5 million, and you can be fined £2,500 for every day you are not properly covered. There is an exemption if the only person you employ is a close family member, such as your husband, wife or civil partner, a parent, a child, or a brother or sister. The family exemption doesn’t apply if the business is a limited company.

Put them together and it is simple enough: the van, the goods, the house, the helper. Four covers, four different jobs, and none of them stands in for another.

Insurance and an operator licence are different things. GOV.UK says you need a goods vehicle operator licence if your vehicle has a gross plated weight over 3,500kg, or a vehicle and trailer whose combined plated weight is over 3,500kg. The plated weight is the most the vehicle can weigh fully loaded, and it is printed on the plate or in the handbook.

Panel vans and Lutons you can drive on a car licence are plated at 3,500kg or under, so if you only work in Britain you do not need one. Over 3,500kg, carrying other people’s goods needs a standard national licence: a restricted one will not do. Tow a trailer and it is the combined weight that counts, which is where people get caught out. The Luton capacity guide has more on what fits in what.

Going abroad is different. Since 21 May 2022, GOV.UK says you need a standard international operator licence to carry goods for hire or reward in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland in a van over 2,500kg. That covers almost every Luton and large panel van. It means having a transport manager, and showing £8,000 available for the first vehicle plus £800 for each extra van.

If you only use your van in the UK, that international rule does not apply. If you are thinking about the odd move to Spain or France, read the GOV.UK guidance before you quote it, not after.

Start with who drives. If a mate ever takes the wheel, even for ten minutes to move the van out of a loading bay, they need to be covered. You can name each driver, or buy any-driver cover. Zego says any-driver usually costs more than adding named drivers, and it normally comes with conditions, often a minimum age around 25, a set number of years holding a full UK licence and a clean record.

A mate who only carries and never drives does not need to be on the van policy. But if you pay them, read the employers’ liability section above, because that is a different policy and the law cares about it.

Be straight about where the van sleeps. Howden says a garage is the safest option and usually means lower risk, and Quotezone lists off-road parking among the ways to bring a removals van premium down. If you say it is on a drive and it is on the street, that is the sort of detail that gets looked at after a theft.

And declare every claim and conviction they ask for. It costs more up front. Leaving one off is how a policy that looked cheap turns into one that does not pay.

GOV.UK sets out the penalty for driving a vehicle you are not insured to drive: a £300 fixed penalty and 6 points. If it goes to court, you can get an unlimited fine and be disqualified from driving. The police can also seize the vehicle and, in some cases, destroy it.

SimplyQuote is blunt about it: driving without valid courier insurance is a criminal offence. The conviction is recorded as IN10, which GOV.UK says stays on your driving record for four years from the date of the offence, and insurers will usually ask about it for five. Expect to declare it, and expect it to show up in every quote after.

Then there is the bit that is not a fine. If something happens on a job and your policy does not cover hire and reward, the claim for your van is the one at risk. That is the van you earn with, gone, with nothing coming back.

Honest bit: none of this is rare or theoretical. When a claim comes in, the insurer will ask what you were using the van for at the time, and on a moving day the answer is simple.

Get several quotes, and include a broker who knows removals as well as a comparison site. The comparison forms are mostly built for couriers, and a broker who places removals cover will ask the questions that matter, such as who carries and who drives.

Sort the van policy and goods in transit at the same time. They are separate policies, but buying them together means you can check they fit: the right class of use on one, a sensible load limit and single-item cap on the other.

Look at the levers you control before you accept the price. A higher voluntary excess, fewer declared miles if that is honest, off-road parking, approved security and paying annually all appear on insurers’ own lists of what brings premiums down.

Get the class of use in writing. A line on the schedule or certificate that says hire and reward is worth more than anything said on the phone. None of this is financial advice. It is what to ask. The policy wording and your broker are the ones who decide.

Do the sum once. Take Confused.com’s April to June 2026 average of £2,275 for fully comprehensive hire and reward. Over 48 working weeks that is roughly £47 a week. At four jobs a week, it is about £12 a job before goods in transit, public liability, fuel or the van itself.

That £12 has to be in your price, every time. If your rates were worked out before you sorted the insurance, or copied from someone cheaper down the road, it probably is not. The man and van prices guide shows what jobs go for, so you can see where your numbers sit.

Then make sure the price you worked out is the price you actually send. Kwotly prices each enquiry on your own rates, so the insurance, fuel and time you have built in are there on every quote, and you check it and send it in minutes rather than guessing on the phone.

Last one. Do the sum again at renewal. If the premium jumps, the price per job jumps with it, and the rates need to move too. What a week actually pays has the bigger picture.