The Taxi Insurer’s flexibility helps keep Britannia Cabs afloat

“If they hadn’t done that, I don't think we'd be here today.”

Wakkas Hussain, director at Britannia Cabs, is explaining how his company managed to survive the Covid pandemic and associated lockdowns thanks to the support provided by insurance broker The Taxi Insurer.

“Eighty per cent of our business is contract work, mainly school transport for local authorities.

​When the government announced that schools were going to be closed for a few months, we contacted The Taxi Insurer and said: ‘We've got 150 vehicles here. All the schools are closed. We've got limited funds coming in due to contracts not running.

We're paying out tens of thousands of pounds each month in insurance for vehicles that aren’t making anything – you need to help us!’ “And they did. They agreed to go down to £50 per vehicle per month, just covering fire and theft – no road use.

So, we went from paying £30,000 a month for insurance to just £2,000-£3,000. That really helped us get through Covid.” Adapting to customer needs When asked why Britannia Cabs has remained on The Taxi Insurer’s books for seven years, it’s this willingness to adapt to its clients’ evolving business requirements that Wakkas keeps highlighting. “We sometimes have to buy vehicles on a Saturday or a Sunday, perhaps from an auction,” he explains.

“Even though it’s a weekend, as long as we email them the registration details anytime before we drive the vehicle for the first time, they guarantee that it will be covered from that point onwards. The paperwork can be done on the next working day. We literally just email them, without having to wait for a confirmatory response.

“That's very handy for our business, because we usually have to collect vehicles outside of normal business hours. It used to be a real pain paying for single-day insurance, which quickly mounted up into quite a bit of money.” The importance of flexibility This flexibility extends to other areas of Britannia Cabs’ operations, delivering significant time savings for the business. “They've given us 48 hours to report an accident,” reveals Wakkas, citing another example.

“You don't need to stay on the phone for an hour any more. You just email them, they send you a link and you fill in a form. Normally, with insurance companies, you have to stay on hold for half an before you get through to anyone.” The amenable nature of the service The Taxi Insurer provides to Britannia Cabs, combined with the mutual trust built up over many years, has allowed the cab company to cope more easily with issues linked to unpredictable cash flow.

“Let’s say an invoice doesn’t get settled on time,” says Wakkas. “We just ring our broker, say that we’re going to pay our premium by a certain date and there’s never any problem. “We may not have been paid for three months, because there's a problem with a purchase order number or the budget holder's been on extended leave. So, I tell them that we're going to receive three months’ pay this month, and they're absolutely fine with it, because we've been with them for so long. They've got that understanding of how our business works.”