Nature of Use of a Vehicle (Business or Pleasure) - Courtesy vehicle not Private use
Abstract
Article
When a driver gives another person a lift and has a road traffic accident there may be a problem as to whether a journey was a social domestic and pleasure or a business use if it contains elements of both. The proper focus is the insured's purposes in construing a policy between the insurer and insured: Caple v Sewell [2002] Lloyd's Rep (I and R) 627, but the court should not be meticulous to search for some secondary purpose or some inessential character. The most influential feature is the overall or primary purpose of the journey in which the accident occurred, the essential character of the journey: Seddon v Binions [1978] RTR 163, where the driver’staking his employer's son to the dentist was a business activity and not social domestic or pleasure. And if driving home from work were the essential primary purpose of the trip it would amount to a work or or business activity rather than a social, domestic, pleasure one and a courtesy collection of and lift to friend on the way, even involving a detour, would not alter the fundamental character of the trip: AXA Insurance (UK) Ltd v EUI Ltd [2020] EWHC 1207 (QB). But as a social kindness his giving a lift to someone else who is engaged on business of his own would still be a social activity as the lift would be merely incidental to the journey: Passmore v Vulcan Boiler & General Insurance Co. Ltd. (1936) 54 Lloyd's List Rep 92. And if the purpose were not within an insured use, the cover would nont apply: AXN v Worboys [2013] 1 Lloyd's Law Rep (I and R) 207. The essential character is that which is present at the time of the incident, though it may have been otherwise very shortly before: Keeley v Pashen [2005] Lloyd's Rep. (IR) 289 [2005] 1 WLR 1226.
A courtesy car is not a private motor car within the policy: AXA Insurance (UK) Ltd v EUI Ltd [2020] EWHC 1207 (QB).