This is a struggle. Ensure that your company has an auto insurance policy that covers your employees in their vehicles when using them for work. Our policy covers any rental vehicles (including large box trucks) as well as an employee personal vehicle. The employee is covered in the event of an accident as long as it is while they are working for the company, but does not cover them if they have an accident during their regular commute, to work or home from work (work in this instance is en route to our office, if they are going straight to home to a worksite they are covered).

From there set a geographical radius that they can claim mileage with a base location. For us, we have it set that an employee can file an expense claim for going to a location using their personal vehicle that is >30mi (60mi round trip) from our home office. If a trip is outside that 30mi radius we reimburse the whole amount based on the IRS rates. Anything within that radius though, outside of extenuating circumstances, it is up to the employee to record their mileage and claim the deduction on their personal taxes. We are not going to ask an employee to drive 200 miles round trip and not compensate them for fuel and wear and tear, but it’s clearly stated in our handbook that localized travel is expected and part of the job.

We also put practices in place that if a company vehicle is being used and transportation is provided by the company in a safe and reasonable manner that an employee can’t claim mileage when a viable option is presented (outside of extenuating circumstances). For example, if a box truck with three seats, all with seatbelts and safe common practices, is on its way to a project, the employees are more than welcome to drive their personal vehicles (yet still covered under our insurance) but cannot claim mileage reimbursement for the drive unless requested/granted permission is given before hand.