Who usually pays
Employer's
motor insurer
Time limit to claim
3 years
from the accident
Injured & not fully at fault
You may
be able to claim
Upfront cost
£0
No Win No Fee
Personal Injury Solicitor at Claim Time Solicitors, Birmingham. Handling personal injury and child injury claims across England and Wales on a No Win No Fee basis.
Every guide we publish is checked against current UK law and reviewed by a qualified member of our team.
If you crash a company vehicle while driving for work, your employer’s motor insurance usually covers the accident, not you personally. Report it to your manager and the insurer, get any injuries checked, and keep evidence. If you were injured and the crash was not entirely your fault, you may be able to claim compensation, even as the driver. It is worth getting advice before you sign anything or agree to pay for the damage.
Crashing a company vehicle is a worrying moment, and it usually raises more questions than answers. Who pays for the damage? Will it affect your own insurance? Is your job at risk, and can you claim for any injuries? This guide works through each of those in plain English, so you know where you stand before you make any decisions.
Whether you drive a company van, a pool car between sites, or a lorry on a fleet policy, the same basic principle applies. When you are driving for work, the accident is usually dealt with through your employer’s insurance rather than your own. What happens next depends on the circumstances, who was at fault, and whether anyone was hurt.
Below, we walk through each part step by step, starting with what actually counts as a company vehicle crash.
What counts as crashing a company vehicle?
A crash in any vehicle owned, leased or hired by your employer, where the accident happens while you are driving for work.
Definition
Vicarious liability
A legal principle where an employer can be held responsible for things an employee does in the course of their job, including road traffic accidents.
A company vehicle is any vehicle your employer provides for work. That includes pool cars, branded vans, lorries, taxis on a fleet policy and, in some cases, your own car when you use it for work under a mileage scheme. A crash counts as a company vehicle accident when it happens while you are driving in the course of your employment.
- Driving between client sites, depots or branches
- Making deliveries or collections on a work route
- Carrying a colleague or passenger for work reasons
- Parking, manoeuvring or refuelling during a shift
The usual daily commute to and from work does not normally count, unless your role means your working day starts the moment you get behind the wheel. If you are not sure which side of that line your journey falls on, it is worth checking, because it affects who deals with the claim.
What to do straight after the crash
Stop and check for injuries, exchange details, report it to your employer and their insurer, get any injuries looked at, and keep your own record of what happened.
1. Make sure everyone is safe
Check yourself and anyone else involved for injuries and call the emergency services if needed. By law you must stop after an accident and give your details to anyone with reasonable grounds to ask for them.
2. Exchange and record details
Take the names, contact and insurance details of any other drivers, plus the registration numbers of the vehicles involved. Note the time, location and weather, and take photos of the scene and any damage while it is fresh.
3. Report it to your employer
Tell your line manager and your employer’s insurer as soon as you can, ideally in writing. Most company vehicle policies require you to report an accident quickly, so a short, factual account is enough at this stage. Stick to the facts and avoid guessing about blame.
4. Get any injuries checked
Even if you feel fine, some injuries such as whiplash can take a day or two to show. Seeing a GP or attending A&E creates a medical record, which matters if you decide to claim later.
Try not to admit fault at the scene, even out of politeness. Fault is decided later, based on the evidence. A quick “sorry” can be misread as accepting blame, so it is better to stay factual and let the insurers work out responsibility.
Who is liable, and who pays?
When you crash a company car while working, the employer’s motor insurance usually covers the damage and any third party. You are not normally liable personally, unless you were doing something well outside your job.
In most cases, when you crash a company vehicle at work, the employer’s motor insurance policy responds. The vehicle belongs to the business, the business insures it, and you were driving it for work. That is why liability usually sits with the employer’s insurer rather than with you as the driver.
There are limits to this. If you were using the vehicle for something clearly outside your job, driving without a valid licence, or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, your employer or their insurer may treat the situation differently. In those cases it is sensible to take advice quickly.
| Situation | Who usually covers it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Driving a company van mid-shift | Employer's motor insurer | Standard work-driving scenario |
| Pool car on a client visit | Employer's motor insurer | Keep your route or diary as evidence |
| Own car used for work (mileage) | Your insurer, sometimes with the employer | Check you have business-use cover |
| Commuting to your usual workplace | Your own insurer | Usually treated as a normal RTA |
| Clearly unauthorised personal use | Potentially you | Speak to a solicitor before responding |
“Being asked to pay for the damage is not the same as being legally required to. Check what your contract actually says before you agree to anything.”
Can my employer make me pay for the damage or the excess?
Sometimes, but only on conditions, and those conditions are set out in statute rather than left to the employer.
Section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 governs this. An employer may not make a deduction from your wages unless the deduction is required or authorised by a statutory provision or by a relevant provision of your contract, or unless you have previously signified in writing your agreement or consent to it. Section 13(2) narrows what counts as a relevant provision: the term must be in written terms of the contract that your employer gave you a copy of before making the deduction, or the employer must have notified you in writing of the term’s existence and effect before making it.
Section 13(3) closes the obvious gap. If the wages actually paid to you on any occasion are less than the wages properly payable, the shortfall is itself treated as a deduction. An employer cannot avoid section 13 by paying you less and calling it something else.
Sections 13(5) and 13(6) close another one, and this is the subsection that catches employers out most often. A contract variation does not authorise a deduction for conduct, or any other event, occurring before the variation took effect. Nor does your written agreement authorise a deduction for something that happened before you gave it. If the damage came first and the paperwork came afterwards, the paperwork does not reach back.
Four things follow that are worth knowing before you agree to anything.
A clause allowing recovery is not the same as proof that you owe the money. In Gavaghan v Herongrange Manpower Direct Limited, case number 6002186/2024, decided at Nottingham by Employment Judge Siddique on 16 December 2024, an engineer recovered the whole of £1,237 that had been taken from his wages for damage to a company van. Of that, £1,000 was said to be an insurance excess for damage discovered in September 2023. The tribunal found the damage had been caused by an unknown third party rather than by the engineer’s negligence, so the contract clause about losses caused by negligence did not apply, and it held the employer’s vehicle policy too vague to provide a lawful basis. A payment plan agreed later could not authorise a deduction for an event that had already happened. The employer produced no documentary evidence of any insurance claim, of repairs done, or of an excess actually paid. The remaining £237, for a windscreen washer stalk, failed because there was no evidence the engineer had caused it and it could have been wear and tear.
An excess your employer never actually paid is not recoverable from you. In Burgess v Handtrans Ltd, case number 2602348/2018, heard at Nottingham before Employment Judge Victoria Butler with reasons given on 20 November 2019, an employer counterclaimed £9,491 against a driver and recovered nothing. Three of the charges were £1,000 each for insurance excess. The tribunal found the employer had chosen not to claim on its insurance at all, which was its own commercial decision, and that the contract term allowed deduction of an excess that was actually payable rather than a notional one. The remaining £6,491 was vehicle recovery cost under a clause that required the employer to prove the driver was at fault. The burden was the employer’s, there had been no investigation, no allegation of fault had been put to the driver, and the claim failed for want of evidence.
Where the clause is clear and the damage is clearly yours, the deduction will usually stand. It would be misleading to show you only the cases workers win. In Pritchard v Harbour International Freight Limited, case number 2409875/2022, decided at Manchester by Employment Judge Anderson with reasons dated 27 March 2023, a driver put petrol into a diesel van. His contract allowed the employer to deduct sums owed including loss or damage to company property, and stated that by signing he authorised such deductions. The tribunal found the wrong fuel caused the damage, held the deductions authorised, and dismissed his claim. The lesson is that the wording of your contract, and whether the cause of the damage is genuinely in dispute, decide the outcome.
A deduction for damage can lawfully take your pay below the minimum wage. This surprises most people. Under regulation 12(1) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, deductions made for the employer’s own use and benefit are normally treated as reductions in your minimum wage pay. But regulation 12(2)(a) excludes deductions or payments in respect of the worker’s conduct, or any other event, where the worker is contractually liable. So where your contract genuinely makes you liable, the minimum wage rules give you no separate line of defence. Where it does not make you liable, regulation 12(1) applies and the deduction does reduce your minimum wage pay.
There is also a distinction worth drawing. If your contract creates a debt but says nothing about taking it from your pay, the employer’s route is to ask you to pay or to sue for the money, not to deduct it. Deducting it anyway is what section 13 prohibits, and an unauthorised deduction can be challenged at an employment tribunal.
In practice most employers claim on the company motor policy and, at most, ask you to cover the excess where the contract allows. If you are being asked for a large sum, get the clause looked at before you agree, because agreeing in writing is one of the things that can make a deduction lawful, and section 13(6) means that agreement will not cover damage that has already happened.
Will it affect my own insurance or no-claims bonus?
Your no-claims bonus is not affected. Your premium can be, and you do still need to tell your own insurer.
The claim itself sits on your employer’s motor policy, because the vehicle belongs to the business and the business insures it. An accident in a company vehicle does not consume your personal no-claims discount, and that is the part most people are worried about. The Financial Ombudsman Service explains the mechanism: where an incident is reported but your own insurer pays nothing out, your no-claims discount is not affected.
The part that catches people out is disclosure. You do still need to tell your own motor insurer about it. Aviva’s published guidance on declaring at-work driving incidents states that a driving-at-work accident in a company vehicle is handled by the company’s insurance, but that you need to disclose the details to your personal motor insurer if you hold a personal policy.
Two reasons not to leave it off the form. The first is the consequence. The Financial Ombudsman Service warns that where an insurer requires you to report any incident you are involved in, even one you do not want to claim for, failing to do so means the insurer might cancel the policy or refuse to pay a claim in the future. Losing cover, or losing a future claim, is a far worse outcome than a higher renewal.
The second is that it affects the premium even though it does not touch the bonus. The Financial Ombudsman Service puts it directly: the fact an incident has happened, however minor, signals to an insurer that you are statistically more likely to claim again. Aviva’s guidance says the same, that an incident in a company vehicle would not affect the no-claims discount but would be considered when the premium is calculated. So the honest answer to whether your insurance will go up is that it can, through the premium rather than through the bonus.
One term worth understanding, because it is counter-intuitive. A fault claim does not mean you were to blame. The Financial Ombudsman Service describes a fault claim as one where your insurer cannot recover its costs from another party, which includes cases where you were not at fault but the costs cannot be recovered, such as a parked car hit by a driver who is never found. Where a fault claim is recorded and the bonus is not protected, it is normally reduced by two years.
Most personal insurers ask whether you have been involved in any accident in any vehicle within a stated period, and the period varies between insurers, so read the question on your own renewal rather than assuming. If you are unsure how a question applies to a company vehicle incident, ask the insurer and keep a note of what they tell you.
Can I be disciplined or dismissed for crashing a company vehicle?
An accident on its own is not usually a reason for dismissal. Your employer must follow a fair process, and any action should be reasonable in the circumstances. If you think you have been treated unfairly, you can take advice.
Having an accident does not automatically put your job at risk. Employers are expected to follow a fair and reasonable process before taking any disciplinary action, in line with the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures. A genuine accident, where you were driving carefully and simply had bad luck, would not normally justify dismissal.
The picture can change if there is evidence of something more serious, such as dangerous driving, driving under the influence, or repeated incidents. Even then, your employer must act reasonably and follow the correct steps.
If you feel you have been dismissed or disciplined unfairly, you may have grounds to challenge it, and length of service is usually what decides whether you can. To bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim you currently need two years of continuous service with the employer. That is due to change on 1 January 2027, when the qualifying period is set to drop to six months under the Employment Rights Act 2025, and the cap on compensatory awards for unfair dismissal is due to be removed at the same time. The government has published both dates, though it notes that future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes. If you were dismissed with between six months and two years of service, the date you were dismissed decides which rule applies to you, so it is worth getting advice rather than assuming you are out of time.
Some dismissals need no qualifying period at all, because they are automatically unfair whatever your length of service. Being dismissed for raising a genuine health and safety concern is one of them. Being dismissed for pursuing a personal injury claim is not on that list, and you should be wary of any page that tells you it is. Separately, the time limit for bringing an employment tribunal claim increased to six months on 1 October 2026, which is longer than the three months that applied before. This is a separate area of employment law, so it is worth speaking to an adviser about your specific situation.
Pursuing a personal injury claim after a genuine accident and being disciplined for the accident itself are two different things. Most injury claims are handled through the insurer and are dealt with separately from your day-to-day employment.
What happens if I crash a company vehicle and I am injured?
If you were injured in a company vehicle within the last three years and the crash was not entirely your fault, you may be able to claim compensation.
Being the driver of the company vehicle does not stop you from making a personal injury claim. What matters is whether someone else was wholly or partly responsible for your injuries, for example another driver, or a fault with the vehicle or the road.
You may be able to claim if:
- The crash happened while you were driving for work
- Another person or party was wholly or partly at fault
- You suffered a physical or psychological injury, however minor it seemed at first
- The accident happened within the last three years
Even if you were partly to blame, you may still be able to claim. In that situation the amount of compensation is usually reduced to reflect your share of responsibility, rather than being refused altogether. This is known as contributory negligence.
| Scenario | May be able to claim? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hit by another driver in a company van | Likely yes | Another party at fault |
| Crash caused partly by you, partly by another | Possibly | Award may be reduced for your share |
| Injured due to a vehicle or road defect | Possibly | Depends who is responsible |
| Single-vehicle crash entirely your fault, no injury to others | Usually not | Speak to us to be sure |
Making a work van or company car accident claim
If you were injured driving your employer’s vehicle and someone else was wholly or partly at fault, you can bring a personal injury claim. Driving a work van or a company car does not weaken your position, and the claim is not made against your employer’s goodwill. It is made against whoever was responsible.
Who that is depends on what happened. Where another road user caused the collision, the claim is against their insurer, in the same way as any other road traffic accident. Where the cause was the vehicle itself, a brake failure, a tyre that should have been replaced, a load that was not secured, the claim may be against your employer, because an employer is responsible for maintaining the vehicles it asks you to drive and for the systems around them. Where a defect in the road caused it, the highway authority may be responsible.
A work van accident claim often has evidence available that an ordinary road traffic claim does not. Fleet vehicles are frequently fitted with telematics that record speed, braking and position. There will be a maintenance and servicing history. There may be a defect reporting system, a daily walk-around check sheet, a tachograph record, or a written fleet policy setting out what drivers were told to do. There will usually be an internal accident report. All of this can be requested, and it is often the difference between two drivers disagreeing and a documented account of what happened.
That evidence has a shelf life. Telematics data and camera footage are overwritten on a cycle set by the provider, and internal reports move with staff. The sooner the request is made, the more of it still exists.
You can claim whether you drive a company car, a work van, a pool car, a fleet minibus or a commercial vehicle, and whether you drive for work occasionally or all day. What matters is that you were injured and that someone else bears some responsibility for it.
How much compensation could i receive?
It depends on your injuries and financial losses. Whiplash injuries from road accidents follow a fixed government tariff, while other injuries are valued using the Judicial College Guidelines. Every claim is assessed on its own facts.
Definition
General and special damages
General damages cover the injury itself, including pain, suffering and the effect on your daily life.
Special damages cover financial losses you can evidence, such as lost earnings, treatment and travel costs.
Compensation is not a single fixed figure. It is built from your injuries and any money you have lost or spent because of the accident. For lower-value whiplash injuries after a road traffic accident, the amount for the injury itself is set by a government tariff. For most other injuries, solicitors and courts use the Judicial College Guidelines as a reference point.
The table below shows the current whiplash tariff for road traffic accidents on or after 31 May 2025. These are the amounts a court may award for the injury itself, before any financial losses are added.
| How long symptoms last | Whiplash only | Whiplash with minor psychological injury |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 3 months | £275 | £300 |
| 3 to 6 months | £565 | £595 |
| 6 to 9 months | £965 | £1,025 |
| 9 to 12 months | £1,510 | £1,595 |
| 12 to 15 months | £2,335 | £2,435 |
| 15 to 18 months | £3,445 | £3,550 |
| 18 to 24 months | £4,830 | £4,975 |
More serious injuries, such as significant back, neck or shoulder injuries and psychological harm, are not covered by the tariff. They are valued individually using the Judicial College Guidelines, now in their 18th edition (2026), together with your financial losses. Because the range is wide and every injury is different, the best way to understand what your claim might be worth is to have it assessed on its own facts.
A very early offer is not always the full picture. It can help to wait until a medical expert has set out your likely recovery, so that any settlement reflects your actual injuries and losses.
Do you have a valid company vehicle accident claim?
Not every crash involving a company vehicle results in a valid compensation claim.
Our free interactive claim-readiness tool helps you quickly understand whether you may be eligible to claim before speaking to a solicitor.
What if the other driver was uninsured or drove off?
You can still claim. The route is different, and it is slower.
Where the driver who caused the crash had no valid insurance, or where they left the scene and cannot be traced, a claim can be made through the Motor Insurers’ Bureau. The MIB exists for exactly these two situations and is funded by insurers for the purpose. It operates two schemes and which one applies depends on whether the driver can be identified: the Untraced Drivers Agreement dated 28 February 2017, which covers accidents on or after 1 March 2017, and the Uninsured Drivers Agreement of 2015, which covers accidents on or after 1 August 2015. Any accident happening now falls under those current agreements.
Two of the conditions are worth knowing. You must submit the claim form at the earliest practicable stage once it appears the driver or vehicle cannot be identified, and under the Untraced Drivers Agreement a personal injury claim must generally be brought within three years of the accident unless there are good reasons justifying a later claim. A police report is not an automatic requirement, but if the MIB reasonably requires one you must report the accident to the police as soon as reasonably practicable if you have not already done so, and cooperate with any police enquiries. Reporting it early is simply the easier course.
Where the vehicle itself was never identified, a claim for vehicle damage is harder. Under the Untraced Drivers Agreement a £400 excess can be deducted from a property damage claim only where significant personal injury has occurred, and that excess does not apply where the vehicle is identified but no responsible person can be. A property damage claim under that agreement has a six-year limit, with no scope to argue for a later claim.
Collect what you can at the scene, because it decides whether the driver stays untraced: a partial registration, the make and colour, the direction of travel, the time, and anything a nearby camera might have recorded.
If you were driving your employer’s vehicle, tell your employer and their insurer as well, because the company policy may carry cover that responds while an MIB claim is being worked through.
Can I claim if I was a passenger in a work vehicle?
Yes, and a passenger is usually in the strongest position of anyone in the vehicle.
A passenger has no control over how the vehicle is driven, so the arguments about contributory negligence that can reduce a driver’s compensation rarely apply. If you were being carried in a work van or a company car and were injured, you can claim against whoever was at fault, and that includes the colleague who was driving.
Claiming against a colleague feels uncomfortable and it is worth being clear about what actually happens. The claim is made against the insurance policy, not against your colleague personally, and where they were driving for work their employer’s motor insurer is the party that responds. Your colleague does not pay your compensation.
Being a passenger also does not depend on why you were in the vehicle. Travelling between sites, being given a lift to a job, or riding in a crew van all count.
One thing does reduce a passenger’s claim: not wearing a seat belt. Where a passenger was unbelted and the belt would have reduced the injuries, compensation is cut to reflect it. Our guide to claiming when the accident was partly your fault sets out how much it is cut by.
What if I was driving my own car for work?
The claim works the same way. The insurance does not.
If you were injured driving your own car on a work journey and someone else was at fault, you claim against them exactly as you would on any other journey. Being on work time does not change who is responsible for the collision.
What changes is which policy deals with the damage, and whether you are covered at all. Motor policies are sold in classes of use, and insurers typically offer four. Social, domestic and pleasure is the narrowest, and it does not cover driving between your home and your work. Social, domestic and pleasure with commuting adds regular travel to and from one workplace. Business use is the class that covers driving related to your job, such as travelling to different sites or offices, attending meetings away from your main workplace, and visiting clients or suppliers. Commercial travelling is a separate class for long-distance and light goods driving.
The distinction that catches people is between the second and the third. If you only ever drive to one workplace, commuting cover is enough. The moment your employer asks you to drive to a second site, to a customer or to a meeting elsewhere, that is business use, and commuting cover does not reach it. If you drive your own car for work without the right class of use, your insurer may decline the claim for the damage, and you are left exposed on something your employer asked you to do.
Because the vehicle is yours, a claim on your own policy can affect your own no-claims discount. That is the opposite of the company vehicle position described above, and it is the single most common surprise for people who use their own car on a mileage allowance.
If you drive your own car for work, two things are worth doing before anything happens: check the class of use on your certificate, and ask your employer in writing whether they provide any cover or contribution for business journeys. Some employers do and many assume the mileage rate deals with it.
How long does a claim take?
Timescales vary. Straightforward whiplash claims through the official portal can resolve in a matter of months, while more serious or disputed cases can take longer.
There is no single answer, because it depends on how serious your injuries are and whether the other side accepts responsibility. Simpler, lower-value whiplash claims made through the Official Injury Claim service tend to be quicker. Cases involving serious injury, disputed fault, or a longer recovery usually take more time, because they need fuller medical evidence.
Common mistakes to avoid
The most common slip-ups are admitting fault at the scene, agreeing to pay for damage without checking, missing medical appointments, and throwing away receipts.
If you crash a company vehicle, a strong case can still be made harder by small mistakes in the early weeks.
These are the ones we see most often:
- Admitting fault at the scene, when responsibility is better left for the insurers to assess from the evidence
- Agreeing to pay for the damage or the excess without first checking what your contract requires
- Delaying medical treatment, which can leave gaps in your records and make injuries harder to link to the crash
- Posting about the accident on social media, which insurers may look at
- Throwing away receipts for anything you have paid out, since financial losses need proof
Summary
Crashing a company vehicle can feel serious, but it is usually more manageable than it first seems. When you are driving for work, the accident is normally covered by your employer’s insurance, not your own. Your personal no-claims bonus is not usually affected, and a genuine accident on its own is not typically a reason for losing your job.
If you were injured and the crash was not entirely your fault, you may be able to claim compensation, even as the driver of the company vehicle. The practical steps matter most: report the accident, get any injuries checked, keep your evidence, and take advice before agreeing to pay for damage or accepting an early offer.
Key takeaways
- The employer’s motor insurer usually covers a company vehicle crash, not you personally
- Your own insurance and no-claims bonus are not normally affected, but you may still need to declare the accident when asked
- An accident on its own is not usually a fair reason for dismissal
- If you were injured and not wholly at fault, you may be able to claim
- The general time limit for a personal injury claim is three years from the accident
Frequently Asked Questions
Who pays if I crash a company car?
Do I have to tell my own insurer about a company car accident?
Can I be sacked for crashing a company vehicle?
Can I still claim compensation if the crash was partly my fault?
Often, yes. Your compensation may be reduced to reflect your share of responsibility rather than the claim being refused completely. This is known as contributory negligence.
How long do I have to make a claim?
For most personal injury claims in England and Wales, the general time limit is three years from the date of the accident. Exceptions can apply, including cases involving children or injuries that become apparent later. It is usually better to act early while evidence is still available.
Do I have to pay anything upfront to make a claim?
Most road traffic accident claims can be handled on a No Win No Fee basis, meaning there is usually nothing to pay upfront. The solicitor should explain any fees, deductions and agreement terms before you decide whether to proceed.
