Drivers license and insurance on all tech's who drive from site to site
Sheila2008
44 Posts
Okay, so I have been asking many, many questions, b/c I am not even a year into one of my hats, which is HR and I am completely crazed....so...we had an ee that we found out his license was suspended, this ee needs his vehicle to go from site to site. We also have lead tech's that drive our company vans and our vans are insured. Once we found out about the tech not having a license he took off last week to get it back or get something stating he could drive to and from work....he didn't....plus he isn't here anymore, but b/c of this, I was told this below:
"You should require every employee that is driving to give you a copy of their insurance and request that the employee's insurance carrier list the company as additional insured on their insurance. You should take a copy of their drivers' license and verify once a year with the DMV that there drivers license is valid. You can put this burden on the employee"
Does that incur a charge to the ee for the company to be listed as additional insured on their car insurance?
I am in the process of updating our ee handbook, that was just created and given to the staff of about 8 in January and want to make sure that I include all of this info and set ticklers for myself to stay on top of it.
Comments
The first thing I would do is call your insurance company and find out what they recommend, because this opens up a whole list of potential issues. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
When employees drive company vehicles you can require a check of their DMV record at the time of hire and once a year. You do need to get their written permission to do this. I would also see if your state offers a pull program. You can register company drivers with the DMV and anytime there is a change to the license, i.e. ticket, drivers moves, etc. you are notified by mail. Again, the drivers need to give you permission to enroll them.
If you require employees to use their own vehicles for work, they need additional insurance to cover any accidents since often private insurance policies have exclusions regarding work related accidents. (I would ask your insurance carrier what the the policy limits need to be, becuase a vehicle used for work purposes will be more expensive.) If an employee gets into an accident while on duty, your company may still hold some liability. For example do you have a cell phone policy? Drivers engaging in cell phone calls while driving opens you up to a big risk, especially if they are calling on company related business.
Also, if you require your employees to drive their own vehicles, do you reimburse them for mileage and how do you track that? I would also update your handbook with language that requires employees who drive for you to notify you of any accidents, tickets, suspensions etc. And that also brings up what is your accident policy?
[quote user="IT HR"]Pammcconnell brings up some great points. One thing I would add is that even if employees are driving their own vehicles it makes sense for the company to get liability insurance in case of an accident. There are a number of recent court cases where an employee gets into an accident in their own vehicle while on company time and the other party has sued both the individual and the company since it was for company business. This liability insurance will help you in this instance.[/quote]
Attorney for the plaintiff will always sue where the money is. This was a big deal with pizza delivery people about 10 years ago. Maybe longer. My mother was an insurance broker for 25 years and has plenty of horror stories to tell about people not being covered by their private insurance when using their personal vehicle for commerical purposes (including individuals who are self employed). In any event, the commercial insurance will cost more, so expect push back from employees in the absence of any sort of compensation scheme to offset that cost in lieu of using company cars instead.
Wasn't the big deal for pizza delivery people regarding a national chain that had a 30-minute or less delivery or it was free guarantee? So many of their drivers were getting into accidents (a couple of them were killed and a couple of them killed other people). The drivers and the company were getting sued left and right over these accidents, so the company stopped the promotion.
Ok, off topic there for a minute. TXHRGuy is right - you will probably hear a lot about the extra cost for the employees. Here is how a couple large companies that I know about have dealt with this. 1.) Give the employee money to cover the extra cost (have to show proof of the extra coverage and the cost associated with this) 2.) The company has an insurance policy that covers the insurance on the vehicle for the employee or 3.) The company gets company vehicles for the employees to use. There are other companies that leave the extra cost up to the employee to cover.
Well, I found out that our commercial insurance does not include "employers non-ownership", so I am in the process of getting it. I have also looked into signing up for the Pull program with the DMV to have print outs whenever there are changes to the ee's driving privileges. I wanted to know if anyone had any verbiage/example I could use, so that I can have each ee sign the authorization release? Do I request the temps to sign as well? I will also need to add it to our ee handbook (yet another task).
We do pay for mileage (they write the miles each day on their timesheets). We don't an accident policy....but do stress and is stated in ee handbook that they can not talk on their cells while driving. So, I guess I am going to need an example on that policy as well.
Sheila2008,
Feel free to contact me off post and I will give you what I can.
pmcconnell@dpnicoli.com