Taxi driver insurance

No, and this is the most important thing to understand before you buy. Your vehicle, and everything that happens as a consequence of driving it, is covered by the compulsory motor insurance you already hold. Public liability sits alongside that policy and answers for injury or damage you cause to other people in the course of your work but outside the act of driving. The classic examples are a passenger injured while getting in or out, a bag damaged while you load it, and a building you catch while dropping someone off.

Public liability isn't required by law in Ireland. However, many hotels, corporate clients, airport operators and school transport contractors require proof of cover before they'll give you work. Cover starts from €7.55 per month.

Cover starts at €7.55 per month including taxes. Your price depends on your turnover, the limit and excess you pick, and whether you add employers' liability for staff. A driver working alone on street and rank work sits at the lower end. Someone on airport contracts with a second driver and a €6.5 million limit pays more. Run a quote to see yours. It takes 2 minutes, with no commitment.

This is exactly the situation public liability is for, provided the injury does not arise from the driving itself. If a passenger trips on the kerb as you hold the door, or is hurt while you help them into the seat, that is a third-party injury claim against you and this cover responds. It pays what you are found liable for up to your cover limit, and it pays the legal costs of defending the claim, which are often the larger figure early on. If the injury happens because of how the vehicle was driven, it belongs to your motor policy instead.

Property belonging to other people while it is in your care is covered as standard on this policy, up to €5,000 per claim and €10,000 in a year. That covers the ordinary things that go wrong in this job: a case crushed in the boot, a laptop bag dropped, an instrument or a wheelchair damaged in handling. Note the limit is per claim, so an expensive single item can exceed it.

Yes. The cover follows your work rather than a fixed address, so it applies at the airport, on a rank, at a hotel entrance, at a client's premises and on the street. What matters is that the work you are doing is work you declared when you took out the policy.

The excess is the part of every claim you pay yourself before Insify pays the rest. If your excess is €500 and a claim settles at €3,250, you pay €500 and Insify pays €2,750. For turnover up to €500,000 you can choose €0, €250, €500, €1,000 or €2,500, and €500 is the default. A higher excess lowers your monthly premium but costs you more on the day something happens, so choose the figure you could actually pay at short notice rather than the one that makes the quote look best.

Yes. There is no long-term commitment and you can cancel anytime. You can also change your cover limit, adjust your excess or add employers' liability as your business changes, without starting a new policy. If you take on a second driver, add a contract that requires a higher limit, or stop doing a type of work, update the policy at that point. Keeping it current is what makes sure a claim is paid, and it takes a few minutes online.