Received Wednesday, November 19, 2008. - Perspective & Opinion
This post is to exchange information with other professional Nannies who drive their charges in their personal vehicles. I have been a full time Nanny since 1998, and with every family I have worked for, I have driven the children to school, events and play dates in my own car. My current family is incredibly generous and insists on paying for half my gas expenses and all of my tolls. When I purchased my first car and obtained insurance I was very candid with the Geico agent that I would using my car to commute back and forth to work AND drive the children around during my work day. With that information they gave me the standard family based household insurance plan.
In the almost 11 years since I have bought a new car three times and therefore re-did my Geico policy three times, always providing the exact same information. So imagine my surprise when I called Geico to give a change of address two weeks ago and during the routine route of questions (What is your occupation, etc.) I was told that I had the WRONG insurance policy! On a follow-up call today I found out that if you are a Nanny and drive your charge in your own vehicle - even once - you must have a commercial policy. I had to immediately change my policy and incurred some unexpected expenses such as a large down payment - even though I have been with Geico for almost 11 years - and a monthly payment that is now double my old one.
I am not worried about the expenses. As I said earlier my employers are angels and will make sure that any work related expense will be reimbursed, but the entire situation was stressful to say the least. I would advise all of the Nannies, Mannies, Governesses, and sitters out there to call and double check their auto insurance policies! Today's call from Geico was not a good surprise!
I too just dealt with this recently. They almost gave me a commercial policy but then when I told them exactly how much I was driving and to what they told me that I could keep my insurance policy and just update it to business (i think it was called that) which would cost $22 more per month).
ReplyDeleteI would only drive to and from classes a couple of times per week for teh record and 2 agents agreed that commercial would be inappropriate.
I would switch insurances. That has to be wrong. All I do is max out my insurance to the highest levels. They told me that's all I needed to do to be 'extra safe' and prepared.
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