FCA authorised · FRN 7249520117 325 0027Quote & buy →
High-performance motor trade insurance is motor trade cover arranged for a business whose stock is high-value or high-performance vehicles. The policy building blocks are the same as any motor trade programme — road risks, stock, premises and liability — but the sums insured, per-vehicle limits, driver criteria and security conditions are set against much higher values per car. Using a vehicle on a road or other public place requires insurance in force under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
Apex places business across 30+ markets and reports 95% client retention; both of those are firm-wide figures covering Apex’s business as a whole and are not presented as figures for motor trade business specifically.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, FRN 724952. Companies House 07014570. This page explains how the cover generally works and what to ask; it is not a recommendation about your own vehicles or your own circumstances. Cover availability and terms depend on insurer underwriting at the time of quotation.
A pitch holding thirty ordinary cars and a pitch holding six supercars can carry a similar total stock figure while behaving completely differently in a claim. The first spreads its exposure; the second puts most of it behind one set of keys. Two limits therefore do most of the work on a high-value pitch: the total stock sum insured, and any per-vehicle or single-article limit sitting underneath it. A policy can carry an ample total and still respond short if the individual car that burns, is stolen or is damaged sits above the per-vehicle cap.
Road risks cover is defined by who is permitted to drive and on what terms. Any-driver wordings, minimum age and minimum licence-held conditions, exclusions for drivers with recent convictions, and restrictions tied to vehicle value or engine size all bear directly on whether a given movement is insured. Whatever those terms are on a given policy, they apply to unremarkable everyday movements as much as to a customer test drive — a valeter repositioning a car, or a junior member of staff taking one to an MOT.
Demonstration puts a valuable car in the hands of someone who has not driven it before, which is why the terms attaching to it repay reading. The points to establish are what identity and licence verification you can evidence afterwards, whether the drive has to be accompanied, and whether the policy carries a separate demonstration excess. Where a car is being moved under a trade licence rather than its own registration, the permitted purposes are prescribed by law rather than by the insurer — see the table below.
Security requirements written into a motor trade policy are terms of the contract rather than suggestions, and where a term is expressed as a condition precedent to liability, compliance with it governs whether the policy responds at all. The requirements worth identifying in a wording are the alarm specification and whether it must be monitored, whether the alarm must be set, where keys must be held overnight, whether stock must be inside a locked building after hours, and how long CCTV must be retained. Reading those as obligations rather than as guidance is the point.
Stock does not stay on the pitch — it goes to photography, to auction, to trade shows, to a specialist for preparation, and sometimes on a transporter rather than under its own power. Whether a vehicle is covered while being carried by a third party, while at a venue you do not control, and while outside the UK are four separate questions with four separate answers, and none of them is settled by the road risks section.
The table below separates the statutory floor from commercial choices. Everything in it is a requirement of law or published government guidance, not an insurer’s position and not our view of what your business needs.
| Question | What the law or published guidance says | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Using a vehicle on a road or other public place | A person must not use a motor vehicle on a road or other public place unless there is in force a policy of insurance complying with Part VI of the Act; contravention is an offence. | Road Traffic Act 1988, s.143(1) and (2) |
| Who may issue the policy | The policy must be issued by an authorised insurer, and must insure against liability for death of or bodily injury to any person or damage to property caused by, or arising out of, the use of the vehicle. | Road Traffic Act 1988, s.145(2) and (3)(a) |
| Minimum third-party property damage cover | A policy is not required to provide insurance of more than £1,200,000 in respect of all liabilities incurred for damage to property caused by, or arising out of, any one accident. | Road Traffic Act 1988, s.145(4)(b) |
| Employees | Every employer carrying on any business in Great Britain must insure, and maintain insurance, under one or more approved policies with an authorised insurer against liability for bodily injury or disease sustained by employees arising out of and in the course of their employment. | Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, s.1(1) |
| Who may hold a trade licence | Trade licence plates are number plates a business can use on vehicles it has for things like selling, repairing or testing. Eligibility covers motor dealers, motor traders and vehicle testers; prescribed business descriptions also include modifying vehicles and valeting vehicles. | GOV.UK, Trade licence plates; Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, reg.35 |
| What a trade-plated vehicle may be used for | Use must be for business purposes and for a purpose prescribed in Part II of Schedule 6 — including test or trial in the ordinary course of construction, modification or repair; test or trial for a prospective purchaser; delivery to the place where the purchaser intends to keep the vehicle; and movement between trade premises. GOV.UK adds that you can only use the plates for the purpose written on your application form. | Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, Sch.6 Pt II paras 10–12; GOV.UK, Rules for using your trade plates |
| Passengers in a trade-plated vehicle | The prescribed purposes do not include the carrying of any person on the vehicle or any trailer drawn by it, except a person carried in connection with those purposes. | Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, Sch.6 Pt II para 9(a) |
| Condition of a trade-plated vehicle | Vehicles must be safe to drive (roadworthy), be insured, and have a valid MOT or be exempt from needing one. | GOV.UK, Rules for using your trade plates |
| A vehicle kept but not insured | A registered keeper of an uninsured vehicle that is not declared off the road may be fined £100, have the vehicle wheel-clamped, impounded or destroyed, and be taken to court for a maximum fine of £1,000. | GOV.UK, Vehicle insurance: uninsured vehicles |
| Presenting the risk to insurers | Before a business insurance contract is entered into, the insured must make a fair presentation of the risk: disclosure of every material circumstance the insured knows or ought to know, made in a manner reasonably clear and accessible to a prudent insurer, with material representations of fact substantially correct. | Insurance Act 2015, s.3 |
Sources: Road Traffic Act 1988 s.143 and s.145; Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 s.1; Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 Part VII and Schedule 6; Insurance Act 2015 s.3; GOV.UK Trade licence plates and Rules for using your trade plates; GOV.UK Vehicle insurance: uninsured vehicles. Retrieved 27 August 2026.
| Decision point | Road risks only | Combined motor trade |
|---|---|---|
| What it insures | Liability arising from the use of vehicles on a road or other public place, within the driver and use terms of the policy. | Road risks plus the property side — stock, buildings and contents, and business interruption — under one contract. |
| Statutory position | Satisfies the s.143 requirement for the vehicles and users the policy specifies, provided it complies with s.145. | Same statutory position for the motor section; the property sections are not compulsory insurance. |
| Where high-value stock is exposed | Stock damaged, destroyed or stolen while not in use is outside the motor section. | Stock is insured on the property side, subject to the declared sum insured, any per-vehicle limit and the security conditions. |
| Where stock is held | No property section, so stock held at your own premises is not insured by this contract. | A property section is present, so stock held at the insured premises can be covered subject to its terms. |
| What a buyer should check | Which drivers are permitted, what use is permitted, and whether demonstration is included. | The per-vehicle limit as well as the total; the security conditions; and how stock values are declared and adjusted. |
Structure of the two policy types as described on Apex’s motor trade insurance UK broker guide. Statutory positions sourced to Road Traffic Act 1988 s.143 and s.145. Cover actually available, and the terms on which it is offered, depend on insurer underwriting at the time of quotation.
Section 3 of the Insurance Act 2015 requires a business insured to make a fair presentation of the risk before the contract is entered into.
That means disclosing every material circumstance the business knows or ought to know, in a manner that would be reasonably clear and accessible to a prudent insurer, with every material representation of fact substantially correct. On a high-value pitch the circumstances most likely to be material are the ones that move fastest: the peak stock figure rather than the average, the single most valuable vehicle held, where cars sit overnight, who holds keys, and what the alarm and CCTV actually are. A declaration that was accurate when it was made and never revisited afterwards is a process problem rather than a question of intent.
Apex’s motor trade proposal form guide sets out how these questions are usually asked, and the motor trade compliance pack covers the record-keeping side.
These are questions to put to whoever is placing your cover. They are not a checklist of what your business needs — that depends on facts this page cannot know.
Apex acts for the client, not for insurers. A named broker reads the submission before it goes to market, and the same person stays with the file through the policy year and into any claim. On a high-value motor trade risk the work is mostly in the presentation: setting out the stock profile, the security actually in place and the driver controls in a form a prudent underwriter can price, so that the terms offered reflect the risk as it really is.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is an independent insurance broker based in Bristol, directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 724952, and established 17 years. Every submission is read by a named broker before it goes to market. Apex places business across 30+ markets and reports 95% client retention; both of those are firm-wide figures covering Apex’s business as a whole and are not presented as figures for motor trade business specifically.
No. It is ordinary motor trade insurance underwritten against higher vehicle values. The building blocks are the same as any motor trade programme — road risks, stock, premises and liability — but the sums insured, per-vehicle limits, driver criteria and security conditions are set to match what the stock is actually worth.
For third-party property damage, yes. Section 145(4)(b) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 provides that a policy is not required to provide insurance of more than £1,200,000 in respect of all liabilities incurred for damage to property caused by, or arising out of, any one accident. Section 145(4) sets no corresponding monetary figure in respect of death or bodily injury. That is a statutory minimum requirement, not a measure of what any particular business needs.
GOV.UK states that trade licence plates are number plates a business can use on vehicles it has for things like selling, repairing or testing, and that you can only use the plates for the purpose written on your application form. The permitted purposes are prescribed in Part II of Schedule 6 to the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, which includes test or trial for the benefit of a prospective purchaser, delivery to the place where the purchaser intends to keep the vehicle, and movement between trade premises.
Only in connection with the permitted purpose. Paragraph 9(a) of Part II of Schedule 6 to the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 provides that the prescribed purposes do not include the carrying of any person on the vehicle or any trailer drawn by it except a person carried in connection with those purposes.
Under section 3 of the Insurance Act 2015 a business insured must make a fair presentation of the risk before the contract is entered into, disclosing every material circumstance it knows or ought to know, in a manner that would be reasonably clear and accessible to a prudent insurer. Stock values and how stock is stored are ordinarily material. The consequences of a breach are set out in the Act and depend on what the insurer would have done had a fair presentation been made.
Section 1 of the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 requires every employer carrying on any business in Great Britain to insure, and maintain insurance, under one or more approved policies with an authorised insurer against liability for bodily injury or disease sustained by employees and arising out of and in the course of their employment in Great Britain in that business. Whether a particular arrangement falls inside that duty depends on the facts of the business.
This is the commercial pillar for one specific problem: a motor trade business whose exposure is concentrated in a small number of very valuable vehicles rather than spread across a large number of ordinary ones. It sits above, not instead of, the rest of the motor trade cluster. If you want the general treatment of the trade — what road risks is, how a combined policy is put together, MOT and recovery exposures — that is the motor trade insurance UK broker guide. If your business works on other people’s vehicles rather than selling its own stock — accident repair, paint, tyres, mechanical — the relevant page is automotive trade insurance. This page assumes you already know what a motor trade policy is and deals only with what changes when each unit of stock is worth a great deal.
Apex Insurance Brokers Limited, FCA FRN 724952, Companies House 07014570. Trading address: QCS, 53 Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol BS1 4HQ.
Apex Insurance Brokers serves UK commercial businesses, including the motor trade. Call 0117 325 0027, email info@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk, or request a quotation.
Get a quote