POOR WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY: Is taxi and private hire insurance part of the issue?
- David Sweeney
- Mar 23
- 2 min read
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee in January this year, Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood MP highlighted the poor availability of wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs) in many parts of the UK, particularly within private hire vehicle (PHV) fleets.
“We want there to be sufficient wheelchair accessible vehicles that serve the needs of disabled people who want them,” Greenwood told MPs. “I do not want people to be in a position where they cannot access a vehicle that meets their needs and enables them to do the journeys they want to do.”
Published in June 2022, the statutory guidance on ‘Access to taxis and private hire vehicles for disabled users’ is clear. Section 165 of the guidance requires “drivers of a designated wheelchair accessible taxi or PHV to carry a wheelchair user without charging extra, and any non-exempt driver to provide reasonable assistance to any wheelchair user”.
Given that drivers of wheelchair-accessible taxis or PHVs are legally required to pick up disabled users of wheelchairs, why is the provision of designated vehicles so inadequate across the country?
Is insurance a factor?
Although the cost of WAVs remains a key challenge, with purpose-built vehicles costing several times more than standard saloon cars, it’s worth examining if insurance premiums are also a factor.
The overwhelming majority of The Taxi Insurer’s individual customers are PHV drivers, who generally choose vehicles plated to carry four passengers, such as a Toyota Prius or a Skoda Octavia. Neither of those vehicles are suitable for carrying passengers in wheelchairs.
In fact, our data shows that just 2% of the vehicles we cover are either suitable or have been adapted to cater for wheelchair passengers. That figure tallies with the Government’s own research, which found that in England on 1 April 2024 there were 5,600 wheelchair-accessible PHVs, making up 2% of all licensed PHVs.
From an insurance perspective, there’s no reason why a WAV should attract a higher premium than a non-WAV.
It’s true that a WAV’s ramp is classed as a modification but, as a non-performance-enhancing modification, it's not one that alters your insurance premium. Neither is it a modification that affects the theft risk profile of the vehicle. It's a modification made purely for customer service purposes.
Considering that the whole ethos of being a taxi or PHV driver is to provide a service to the entire public, including those with a disability, and that WAVs don’t attract higher premiums than non- WAVs, it seems that the Government will have to tackle the WAV cost issue if any meaningful progress is to be made in the provision of WAVs in the taxi and PHV industry.
ARTICLE BY: DAVID SWEENEY, HEAD OF TAXI BROKING AT THE TAXI INSURER
