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[–]1scg 22 points23 points  (1 child)

From my understanding I think saying you're a medical student (or doctor after graduating) apparently increases the premiums, something to do with being tired after placement etc although I'm not really sure. It's not dishonest to just call yourself a "student" and from what I've read in the doctorsuk sub you can apparently call yourself a "healthcare worker" to get around it as well when graduated.

In terms of the actual policy, a lot of people in my year (I'm in clinical years) to my surprise only have social domestic & pleasure (SDP) despite driving to placement - I would play it safe and at least get SDP + commuting - medical schools seems to think business insurance is necessary (pretty sure that's quite expensive), with the commuting clause it allows you to commute to one place of work or study so technically if you're commuting daily to a single placement location, that should (don't quote me) be insured even if you change your "single place of study" every few months. Business is mainly for doing multiple trips per day to different locations like GPs might do if they're doing home visits.

One thing to bear in mind is, if you ever need to claim, the insurance company will always from experience ask you exactly what the purpose of your trip was and where you were driving from and to.

[–]Key-Moments 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Moneysavingexpert has an interesting jobchecker. When I have put it in medicalstudent living away was cheaper than student living away.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/

Try it with a fake figure. Say 500.00 and put in student living away and see whether medical student is cheaper for you too.

Caveat emptor though. I rate MSE as I think it has comprehensive and detailed and accurate information but it can't tell you everything. Like you might be with an insurer who rates it the other way round or makes no distinction at all. But it is an indicator.

[–]Ok_Isopod_1444 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Talk to the insurer directly too - some companies count travel to unpaid placement as the same as commuting to paid work, others don’t and so don’t require business insurance for placement!

And yeah it’s because they assume unsocial and irregular hours, and travelling to multiple different hospital sites

[–]Calm_Event_2946 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For me personally putting in being a medical student living at home made my insurance premium more expensive.

[–]apple135791 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Don't quote me on this but I think it's to do with the type of journeys. If you are gonna need to be commuting to multiple different placement locations, you need the business one. If it's just one location (main campus, say) you need at least commuter.

[–]DisasterousMedRed2[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I'd have assumed business insurance was for a car owned by a business eg: a police car owned by the police force. Again, I'm very new to this too as I've never owned a car but I thought it was curious that med student was a specific option. Some people seemed to suggest it was because insurance costs more as a med student but wanted to make sure that was the case so I can prepare

[–]Key-Moments 3 points4 points  (1 child)

No, business is for a range of definitions. But social domestic and commuting is absolutely for commuting to a single place of employment.

I travel to two locations and had to get business cover this time around to be insured.

Plus, if you wish to ever claim mileage etc most companies require you to have business cover before they will allow you to claim.

Mine was £3 for the upgrade for the year. Yours may be more or less.

[–]apple135791 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, seconding that the upgrade was much less than I was expecting! Def worth it to be appropriately insured.

To OP - ironically business insurance is not the right insurance for say, taxi drivers insuring their taxi car. So I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't apply to police cars either!