Motor fleet insurance may be able to help transform the way you insure your fleet of vehicles – and that might bring with it some major advantages.
Pressures
Perhaps you’re a fleet manager or CFO. It’s also possible you’re the CEO or business owner.
Whatever your role, if your company operates a fleet of vehicles then it’s fairly safe to predict that one of your concerns will be the cost of your fleet operations. Vehicles have never been cheap to operate but today cost containment is a bigger potential headache than ever.
Fuel, purchase costs, maintenance and of course insurance – they all mount up.
In some cases, those costs may be more or less out of your control. After all, there’s not much you can do about global oil prices.
However, you may be able to exercise some cost control over one major area – that of your fleet insurance.
Motor fleet cover
If your fleet is currently insured through several insurance providers and across individual policies, then you might be missing an opportunity.
That’s because there are motor fleet insurance policies available that might be able to cover all the vehicles in your fleet. Yes, that’s right – HGVs, vans and cars all together.
What does that do for you?
Well, it could help to reduce your direct and indirect costs at a stroke. Here’s why:
- economies of scale. As in just about any other aspect of commercial life, if you buy in bulk you’re likely to get a lower unit cost. True, insurance isn’t usually discussed in such terms but this is the reality.
If you have multiple vehicles covered by a single insurer, it’s likely to result in lower overall prices for you than if those vehicles are insured through multiple different companies;
- reduced admin. This is a hidden cost but the overheads of trying to manage multiple policies, multiple providers and above all, multiple renewal dates, isn’t to be taken lightly.
Potentially huge amounts of time and therefore money could be saved if there was only one policy, one provider and a single renewal date.
Mixed fleets
It’s sometimes, wrongly, perceived to be the case that you can’t cover lots of different vehicle types on the one motor fleet insurance policy.
As mentioned above, that’s not necessarily the case. It is correct that some insurers don’t like mixed fleets but some others will accept them.
Private use
This is again, not a problem for some policy providers.
Any driver cover
It’s possible to take out options that will allow you to use any driver with a suitable licence. That might even include younger or newly qualified drivers.
Of course, there may be some restrictions on drivers with certain of the more severe motoring convictions on their driving record.
Optional excess
Another advantage of being a big customer is that it gives you far more negotiating clout with your insurer.
That in turn might mean that you’ll be able to opt for a higher voluntary excess in return for a lower premium.
Summary
If you have three or more vehicles in your fleet, it might be sensible to find out more about motor fleet insurance – and soon!
