A little help...
 

Hiya,

I don't know if I'm posting this in the right section, but here goes;

Myself and my business partner (both bus drivers) are starting a coach company and are currently in application for our operator's licence. We are going to be running tours of the perthshire highlands from Edinburgh and have bought ourselves a lovely wee mercedes vario 614d 24-seater mini-coach. It's not perfect body-wise but apart from that it is in brilliant condition.

We plan on doing a lot of the body-work and minor repairs ourselves whilst the bus is off the road before the summer season starts and whilst we are waiting for confirmation of our OL, but until that time we need NON-hire and reward insurance, since obviously we won't be carrying paying passengers.

We've had a quote for just over £2k for H+R insurance when we DO start trading, but up until that point the bus will be doing very few miles and will be sitting off the road under cover whilst we do the work on it. We obviously don't want to stump up £2k before we have to, but are having real trouble finding any sort of 'private' bus insurance that is not for H+R.

The bus will probably not even top 1000 miles over the next 3/4 months whilst we're working on it, so the insurance policy only needs to cover TPFT, even if only for a short period of time.

Does anyone have any advice or does anyone know if there are any brokers or private insurance company who will do that sort of thing?! As we're just starting out ourselves, it's all a bit daunting, despite the 15 years combined experience driving coaches!

Thanks for any help in advance...

I'd suggest getting in touch with preservation groups - as they will have vehicles that don't require licensing, yet need insurance for attending events (and during storage).