Do’s and Don’ts while Renewing Auto Rickshaw Insurance Online
If you own a rickshaw or a fleet of rickshaws that you lease out to auto rickshaw drivers, it is absolutely essential for you to always have a commercial vehicle insurance policy in place. While every profession has its bad apples and its jewels and we wouldn’t want to stereotype the members of any profession, it may be safe to say that rickshaw drivers tend to be notorious for reckless driving and endangerment.
Even if you are lucky to have very safe and conscientious drivers using your vehicles, especially in India’s cities, traffic congestion, road rage and the general situation of people always being in a tearing hurry, puts your vehicle at risk for road accidents. This could deal a serious blow (pun intended) to your finances depending on the extent of the damage to your vehicle and the third party’s vehicle, the circumstances of the accident and so on.
At any rate, the law requires all vehicles running on India’s streets to be covered by insurance and without it, you would be breaking the law. Today you can buy commercial vehicle insurance onlineand as such, it is a quick, easy and convenient process.
To make your filtering process easy, here is a useful list of dos and don’ts when buying commercial vehicle insurance that you can consider when evaluating potential insurers and policies:
Do consider fleet insurance
A fleet insurance policy can be purchased as commercial car insurance for a fleet of taxis or commercial fleet insurance for any commercial vehicle (school buses, tractors, you name it) where a single person has ownership of multiple vehicles and a registered business.
This type of commercial vehicle insurance will offer you benefits such as cost-effectiveness, easy record-keeping and a single date for insurance renewal across all vehicles in your fleet.
The last thing you want to do is forget your renewal date for one vehicle, and this can help you avoid such a situation. In terms of cost-effectiveness, fleet owners might have to bear a higher upfront payout, but the cost-per-vehicle will usually deliver better value.
Don’t procrastinate when you purchase a new vehicle
Let’s imagine that you are mid-way through your fleet commercial vehicle insurance online policy and you get an amazing deal on a new rickshaw or a few new rickshaws.
What now? Should you ignore the amazing deal? Not buy insurance for this rickshaw till the other fleet vehicle insurance premium becomes due? Or just put this new vehicle on a new/ individual policy, and if yes, won’t that happen every time you add a vehicle or two?
None of the above. You can go for a monthly policy on the new auto rickshaw until you need to pay your fleet insurance premium and then bundle the new vehicle into the policy.
Don’t go for the cheapest possible option
The cheapest option you can go for is commercial vehicle third party insurance and to be fair, this is the bare minimum requirement that will keep your business out of any trouble with the law. However this type of insurance only covers any accidental damage to a third party’s vehicle and does not cover your auto rickshaw or its driver (unless it is the vehicle owner itself who drives the rickshaw). This means that the financial burden of any repairs to your rickshaw is all yours. This is why you should – as far as budgets allow – avoid cutting corners and opting for only third party insurance.
Do your best to budget for a comprehensive policy, or at least TPFT
TPFT is the commonly used acronym for commercial vehicle insurance that includes third party insurance, fire and theft. This means that over and above coverage to any third party vehicle and driver, you will receive a sum of money in case your vehicle is stolen or damaged in a fire (make sure to wrap your head around the terms and conditions).
But this still leaves you unprotected in case of total loss or damage occurring in natural disasters, riots or any other unforeseen circumstances.
Comprehensive insurance covers you against all eventualities including situations where it cannot be determined whose fault caused the accident or in cases of hit and run.
Do shop around
Be sure to compare the premium amounts, benefits, freebies, IDV and so on before you purchase a policy. Online marketplaces like IIFL allow you to compare insurance policies from multiple insurers under one roof. Shopping around will assure you of maximum cost-effectiveness.
Don’t ignore DUI
No matter how much you pay for your insurance, if the auto rickshaw driver caused an accident and was found to be driving under the influence, you stand to not receive your insurance amount. This includes paan! Make some sort of deal with those you lease your vehicle to, that places financial burden on them if you lose insurance payout on account of their DUI.
Takeaway
Just like an office will invest in IT security and secure doors; perhaps a guard and receptionist to disallow people from waltzing into the office, you need to protect your business assets – namely your commercial vehicles/ auto rickshaws – by insuring them. For a small upfront cost, you can avoid seriously denting your earnings (or registering losses depending on the extent of damage) if your auto rickshaw is in an accident.
