Renting your old car out for weddings, special occasions

[MarkV]

What has been your experience with this? either as a customer, etc. or have you known people who do this, etc. What are their experiences?

[Jay Wolf]

Usually the cost of public carrier insurance exceeds any money you can make.

Tell your insurance company you want to take passengers for hire in a old car with poor brakes and no safety equipment.

[old gto]

<span style="color: #3333FF">I`ll second that. Door wide open for liability.</span>

[Shop Rat]

We have friends that have taken folks in retirement facilities for rides in their old cars. Not sure if their club insurance covers it or not. But I could ask and let you know.

[olympic]

My experience in Maryland is that it is not worth it. If you are driving a car for hire, you should have a chauffer's license. Next, the documents that you sign to get the Maryland historic tags states that the car is NOT to be used for hire and my antique insurance says the same thing. I know people that do it here, but I believe they are taking a chance. Dave

[jscheib]

Here im CT there are a few companies that do limo service in antique cars, mostly Rolls, Bentley or similar and I trust they are properly insured, etc.

I might drive a friend but not for any payment, but who wants to ride in a nice '32 sedan in the summer without AC.

When I mention that, that usually changes the bride's mind.

John

[Guest ZondaC12]

I was actually approaced by a fellow club member whose friend's grandson was going to prom and he and his date wanted to be chauffeured in an old car. They backed out a few days before the event because they ended up going with someone else in the club that has a 55 chevy made into a limo (REALLY neat lookin vehicle!) so I was kinda bummed out but it would have been neat.

Naturally it would have been strictly off the record so if you can network and find people looking for that just through friends/family that works too. That's what I'd do anyway even though YES technically to do it en masse and advertise and all that you should be licensed and stuff.

[Guest VeloMan]

I get La Vie De L'Auto, the French weekly vintage car magazine. Every week, they have a page of photos of wedding parties standing next to vintage cars. This is apparently a big thing over there, and I often wondered how they do the insurance.

Phil Jamison

PA

[Guest bkazmer]

how they do it?-fewer lawyers (or for you Veloman, "less avocado")

[Restorer32]

In PA to legally haul passengers for pay you would need a Chauffeur's license and likely be subject to the usual commercial driver's license rules and regs. We get calls every year from folks wanting cars for weddings, etc. We pass on them because of the potential liability.

[JohnD1956]

The insurance industry is ruining America. And the best advice would seem to be; don't have a car that lends itself to this type of activity.

That being said, if I was in a position to help out I'd consider doing this as a favor for someone. Yes, there are liability issues to be certain, but what fun is an old car if you lock it away where no one can ever appreciate it? If you take your car to a show you also have some risk, both on the road and on the field. Presumably as a wedding favor you'd not be racing to any location and can take extra precaution both driving and assisting passengers into and out of the vehicle. Of course this assumes your car is finished so the bridal couple is not sitting on bare seat springs nor that your car has any inherent untended to sharp protrusions just waiting to puncture a passenger ( or driver).

[Ron Green]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: JohnD1956</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The insurance industry is ruining America. And the best advice would seem to be; don't have a car that lends itself to this type of activity. </div></div>

If you don't charge or do it on a continuous basis you shouldn't have a problem with the insurance company.

Our collector car insurance is cheap for a reason. They don't want you driving a old beater for a daily driver or use you vehicle for a business.

[Paul Dobbin]

I can speak for the Insurance company. If you are carrying people who pay to ride in your car, your basic personal auto policy has an exclusion the eliminates coverage.

IN OTHER WORDS YOU HAVE NO COVERAGE FOR THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now back to the real world:

#1 If you want to carry the happy couple for friends or family, go ahead and do it. But, do it for the fun of it and an invitation to a good reception, NOT FOR PAY.

#2 If you do it for "Tips", remember that all those lawyers

that pay $20,000 a month to adverstise on the cover of your yellow pages don't care how nice a guy you are when somebody is hurt. They'll own you collection and your buttocks if somebody gets hurt. You can keep the $200 because your insurance company will want off of the claim and your policy. Read the exclusions, they're there.

Now consider this, the guy who who owns a fleet of Limo's and it includes an antique car is paying about $4,000 insurance for what you pay $100 for. The reason? See your exclusions.

It's like when you sell a car and the buyer says, "I want to take a test drive" you think around the block, and he's

thinking the Great Race Around the World. When you assume you are covered you are playing with fire. Get the right coverage first, your personal collector car policy is not

the right coverage.

[Phils38cpe]

Just own a 2 seater coupe and there is no problem

[MarkV]

Well, that is a gray area, because my policy allows for 'leasure driving' and I can get up to unlimited mileage per year on my classic car policy. So, whatever 'leasure' means?

[Argyll]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: VeloMan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I get La Vie De L'Auto, the French weekly vintage car magazine. Every week, they have a page of photos of wedding parties standing next to vintage cars. This is apparently a big thing over there, and I often wondered how they do the insurance.

Phil Jamison

PA </div></div>

Hi Phil,

Here in Scotland classic car wedding hire is one of the simplest businesses to set up I know. We hire our Chevy out for weddings and make a reasonable living from it, without all the hassle you guys appear to have to go through.

Insurance is a snip, where if an owner wants to do only one wedding most insurance companies will do "single hire" policies for about $60, whereas I add it on for the year to my regular cover and the additional cost works out about $200 on top of my yearly cover of $200.

However that's for weddings only, if you get into what we call "Private hire" or special occasions then insurance rockets into 4-figures and there just isn't enough business to support that.

I charge $600 per wedding, so an extra £200 for insurance is well covered by the first wedding of the year.

Argyll.

[Guest AntarcticDave]

We have had requests in the local Cadillac Club and what we have done, when the person with the car was willing, was to do it on an unpaid basis just to be nice, but encouraged the person that they might wish to make a charitable donation to the club's Christmas fund (we adopt familes at Christmas). That way we make someone happy, meet the letter of the law, and in most cases, the club gets some extra cash towards a good Christmas for some needy families.

Dave

[Guest VeloMan]

I like the "per use" insurance fee for weddings as Argyll describes. After all, weddings are usually rather conservative affairs, and the owner is driving the car. Maybe J.C. Taylor and the other vintage car insurers could make some money with this idea.

Phil Jamison

[MarkV]

Well, as long as the owner is driving, it should not make any difference, because, the people are like regular passengers, except with different clothes! We have a minumum insurance ammt here in CA.

[Restorer32]

Try convincing a hungry attorney that a wedding party to whom you are not related is "just regular people". Then when the atty is finished with you try to convince the IRS that you did the job for free. Not worth the potential liability in my opinion. I might haul family members or close family friends and indeed have done so, but to offer a commercial service to random folks is fraught with danger.

[charlier]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Restorer32</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Try convincing a hungry attorney that a wedding party to whom you are not related is "just regular people". Then when the atty is finished with you try to convince the IRS that you did the job for free. Not worth the potential liability in my opinion. I might haul family members or close family friends and indeed have done so, but to offer a commercial service to random folks is fraught with danger. </div></div>

If the hungry attorney in this case is also a smart attorney and has his/her paraleagals start searching around the internet it might be difficult to use the "just regular people" defense in the event of a lawsuit. That would not be the first time that someone posted something on the internet and had it used against them.

In the lawsuit crazy world we live in, taking a risk like this without the proper insurance, licenses, etc. is not a risk I would take. But that is just me.