London is an area rich in culture, bursting with an excitement that the world finds extremely enticing.
Tourists drive, fly, sail and cycle over to London throughout the year, desperate to experience the realism of London. This element of verisimilitude is a notion that makes the capital of Britain a sought-after area, especially for the taxi drivers of the city.
A career as a taxi driver in London is pretty attractive with the constant flow of clientele giving way to healthy incomes. However, the life of a London Taxi driver has its flaws.
With high numbers of both people and traffic the area inevitably acts as a higher risk with London serving as a dangerous place in the eyes of the insurance industry. Insurance brokers and providers have a tendency to pigeon hole the taxi drivers of London; seeing nothing but risk when receiving enquiries for vehicle coverage.
The London Cab is a great figure of British iconography with many wanting to see this glorious city through the window of the London taxi. With black cabs seating a larger number of passengers than the regular hatchback the probability of a passenger being injured is thus increased. With taxicabs acting as tour guides they have no option but to enter the most prolific streets of the city, placing themselves amongst the largest number of tourists possible.
The endless traffic jams and unruly passengers give way to higher prices for vehicle coverage, an inescapable financial web in which the London taxi driver simply has to deal with.
The London economy is one untouched with almost every area of business practice well and truly inundated with interest on a constant basis. This is very much the case when it comes to the insurance sector, making a great deal of money from this high-risk category that is London taxi drivers.
However, in the defense of the insurer London Taxi drivers drive more miles than the average motorist, which means there is an increased statistical risk of an accident occurring. Although insurance companies are there to cover your taxi they also need to protect themselves, making sure they have considered every risk possible. All considered they are the ones that have to pay out if a risk is lived out to become a collision.
The congested condition of London is another factor that plays a part in the labeling of risk. London has actually implemented a congestion charge for its visitors to accommodate the high levels of emissions released into the atmosphere. Bumper-to-bumper traffic is a recipe for a crash, testing the taxi driver’s level of focus and reaction to its limits. It is for this reason that the London taxi falls into a higher insurance bracket charged considerably more for cover than the average vehicle.
Under the new Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE) regulations, introduced in June 2011, all vehicles on the road must be insured at all times no matter what condition they are in.
For this reason many London taxi drivers go for cheap taxi insurance that is not of a high standard, putting both themselves and their precious vehicle at risk.
With so much going on in the hub that is London insurance is higher than the rest of the UK. In fact, cities in general feel the wrath of the risk factor.
Insurance premiums are centred on location with the area of registration playing a great hand in the price put forth to the driver. More suburban areas serveas a lot less of a risk in comparison to the city driver, presented with less people;fewer hazards and most importantly lower insurance premiums.