Taxi Insurance

TaxiNumber.com guide to Taxi Insurance

What types of taxi insurance are available?

There are 2 types of insurance specifically for the taxi/private hire industry, these are:
Private Hire Insurance, also referred to as minicab insurance.
Public Hire Insurance, also referred to as hackney or black cab insurance.
The term "taxi insurance" can generally be used to refer to either of these types of insurance.

What's the difference between private & public hire?

Private hire vehicles are restricted to pre-booking only, they are not permitted to use the sign "Taxi" on the top of their vehicle, and can not ply for hire at the side of the road in taxi ranks.

Public hire or hackney carriages are licensed and insured to collect passengers at the side of the road. These are the vehicles that typically have the "Taxi" light on top of the vehicle like London black cabs.

What type of vehicle can I insure?

This question is not really the one you should be asking. What you should be asking is what type of vehicle can I license? If you can license it, the likelihood is you can insure it.
The DFT's legislation gives local authorities a wide range of discretion over the types of vehicle that they can license as taxis or PHVs. Some authorities specify conditions that in practice can only be met by purpose-built vehicles but the majority license a range of vehicles. You should check with your local licensing authority before purchasing a vehicle for use as a taxi or private hire vehicle.

Can I insure more than 1 driver?

As with normal car insurance you can include additional drivers on your taxi insurance policy in the form of named drivers or an any driver policy. Any driver policies will usually have higher age restrictions on than a normal car policy and can be prohibitively expensive if not.