Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Cool — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 11:44:32 GMT

I agree Bob. However many employees are trying to take advantage these days

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Bob Russell — Wed, 18 May 2022 11:31:40 GMT

The flip side of this is that a good candidate for a job is difficult to find therefore adding a bit to a contract and offering to pay insurance may be a small price to pay. You can claim it as an expense and the employee a potential benefit in kind. Your accountant should be able to advise. It may not actually cost that much and losing a colleague may be a lot more expensive.

Pros and cons!

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

James Dunne — Wed, 18 May 2022 11:10:14 GMT

Thank you to everyone for your replies. Plenty of food for thought and things I hadn't thought of. Much appreciated.

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Bob Russell — Tue, 17 May 2022 10:02:19 GMT

The mileage payment is for practice journeys only unless the accountant can justify otherwise. The journey to and from work is not covered but if you go home and are called back in this can be paid.

The payment should include the additional cost of business insurance but I cannot see paying the whole policy is required.

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Fri, 13 May 2022 00:36:16 GMT

[quote userid="2249" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30292/small-animal-practice-ts-cs-mileage-and-insurance"]They live within walking distance of the practice[/quote]

So, ummm..... why not walk? And demand an allowance for shoe leather...

As for night work ("OOH"), it would be better to point out that their big bonus for attending something at night (there is a big bonus, I presume), even after tax, is certainly going to compensate for two miles' use of car.

[quote userid="2249" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30292/small-animal-practice-ts-cs-mileage-and-insurance"] 'chancing one's arm'[/quote]

Otherwise known as "taking the mickey?"

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

niamhjl — Thu, 12 May 2022 18:33:32 GMT

As above, you aren’t allowed to pay mileage for their normal commute in and out of work, but you should be paying it if they use their own car to go on a house visit or to travel between branch practices. I think coming in out of hours is a grey area, but when I last did OOH we were paid mileage for travelling in outside of business hours.
many companies upgrade to business insurance for free, and those that charge for it usually only add on £20-30. My old practice paid the negligible cost of the uplift.

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Yantha Smyth — Thu, 12 May 2022 18:22:15 GMT

Agree with David and Thomas's comments. Mileage not payable for commute to place of work (unless temporary). 45p per mile- so for inter-branch travel and home visits. My car has always been covered for business use as standard part of insurance with Direct Line, but if not the additional premium for adding business use to domestic/pleasure would be minimal.

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

Thomas Johnson — Thu, 12 May 2022 14:05:30 GMT

[quote userid="2249" url="~/001/nonclinical/f/life-in-practice-discussions/30292/small-animal-practice-ts-cs-mileage-and-insurance"]Dear Colleagues, I hope you can help advise me or at least get some sort of consensus on what I am being asked to provide. I have recently employed an experienced vet who has demanded that they get mileage written into their contract. They live within walking distance of the practice and even when they are on call, are unlikely to generate any wear-and-tear on their vehicle over and above driving into work. They are on call no more than 3-4 nights a month, often less. They have also demanded that the business pay their car insurance, saying that they have purchased business insurance for attending work. I have never heard of small animal practices paying vets for mileage nor have I ever heard of practices paying for their employee's car insurance. Whether they need business insurance or not for driving to a defined place of work is surely down to an individual insurer?[/quote]

Business insurance is not normally needed for commuting to work, but if they are using their car to go on a home visit they do need business insurance. Would you consider paying the difference in their insurance costs between normal and business insurance? In my experience it adds very little to the cost.

As far as I am aware HMRC do not allow employees to claim mileage payments for their commute, but they should be able to claim mileage for home visits, or driving between branches. I think there is an argument that if they are at home when on call they could claim business mileage to come in to the practice, but if it's less than a mile it really sounds as though it wouldn't be worth the hassle of doing so!

RE: Small Animal Practice Ts & Cs (Mileage and Insurance)

David Mills — Thu, 12 May 2022 13:56:46 GMT

Is OOH at the same premises as day time work? Are there branch practices they drive to ordinarily? Do you do house visits? Are there any practice vehicles?

If OOH is at the same premises then would be covered under commuting insurance normally.

Brnach practices and movement between during working day would usually need business insurance.

House visits would need business insurance.

Use of a practice vehicle would circumvent the above.

Adding business insurance to 'normal' (leisure or leisure/commuting) is usually peanuts - about £25-30 a year normally - so asking for you to pay the whole insurance is nonsense.

Most places pay mileage if you are asked to work somewhere other than your primary/contractual premises e.g. I would be paid mileage (or reimbursed cost of public transport) if I was working at one of our other hospitals that wasn't my primary place of work. Mileage would normally be at a level that covers not only cost of petrol but also wear and tear of the vehicle. Some employers pay a car allowance as a lump sum each year and pay a lower mileage. Others just pay a mileage at e.g. 40p a mile for the first 100 miles in a month then e.g. 15p/mile above that. What you define as primary premises (easy if you have one premises) depends on the contract - if it isn't defined and you have a few practices they could all be regarded as primary place of work for example.