Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 31 July 2013:
Anyone who drives a delivery van will know that the costs of keeping your vehicle are absolutely horrid – but now there’s some hope on the horizon!
It’s absolutely expensive to keep a van up and running nowadays, what with the costs of petrol and van insurance. Many a white van man has had to deal with the headaches of parking penalties as well, but I just discovered that there might finally be some help coming to all you van drivers out there – and from the Conservatives, believe it or not!
A new proposal could see drivers of all types given a 15 minute grace period when it comes to parking on double yellow lines in the future. The move is designed to breathe new life into the currently nearly-abandoned UK high street, since most people would rather just surf the internet and get their shop done online instead of going down to the corner and risking running afoul of parking enforcement.
Of course, couriers and delivery drivers don’t have the option of staying at home with their feet up; they’ve got a job to do. The knock-on effect of this new proposed plan could see the costs inherent in being a white van man go down, since there’ll be fewer parking penalties they’ll have to pay – so I think it’s a brilliant plan and I hope it gets pushed through quickly!
Even if it doesn’t though there’s still some hope for the lowly van owner, thanks to another story I read this week. Apparently the AA’s car insurance arm discovered that the cost of comprehensive insurance is dropping like a stone – in fact it’s going down at the fastest rate since 1994, when the AA started keeping track of such things.
Comprehensive quote averages hit £594.84 in July, the AA said, which is down 9.8 per cent from last year. This is fantastic news for everyone, whether they need car or commercial vehicle insurance, but we’re still not out of the woods yet.
Just remember, even though prices are falling they’re still too damn high when you think back to what you were paying back before the economic downturn in 2007. Still, if this keeps up maybe we’ll get back to a place where you don’t have to go down to your local pawnbroker and sell off a few body parts to afford annual cover; maybe we’ll get even luckier and the price of petrol will drop soon, as well!
That last one is probably not going to happen, but I can dream can’t I?
