Securing the right coverage for a fleet is an integral part of the Fleet Manager’s role and can make a huge difference to the finances of the company.  While it’s important that your fleet is covered as soon as possible, there are a few things to think about before committing to a contract.  In this article, we’ll take a look at what you need to consider before taking out fleet insurance:

To fleet or not to fleet

First things first, you need to decide whether or not you actually need fleet vehicle insurance.  As a rule of thumb, three business vehicles or more is considered to be a fleet - any less than this and, you may find it more cost effective to choose regular, individual vehicle insurance over a fleet policy.  

Verifying vehicle use

So, you’ve decided that you do need fleet insurance, what’s next?  Before shopping around for fleet insurance providers, you need to consider your vehicle use as this will dictate the kind of insurance you need.  For example, you’ll be looking at public or private hire insurance if your fleet of vehicles will be carrying people, whereas, if your vehicles are transporting goods long distance, haulage insurance is the way to go.  The most common kind of fleet insurance tends to be courier van insurance which covers local deliveries of goods.

The right man or woman for the job

Your next step is to run an audit of your driver profile and, here, you’ll want to make sure that all drivers have a clean license.  You may also want to impose a minimum age limit of 25 as this can help to lower the cost of your premiums.  It’s always a good idea to put in place driver training and monitoring policies to make sure that your employees don’t let you down in terms of insurance costs.

A calculated risk

Now that you’ve got your vehicle use locked down, it’s time to decide what kind of insurance will work for you.  As with private vehicle insurance, there are three main types of fleet insurance and, these are:

• Fully comprehensive
• Third party only
• Third party fire and theft

At this stage, you’ll need to think about the day to day duties of the vehicle and where it is stored in order to choose the option that will tick all the boxes for you in terms of possible accidents /incidents.

Repair or replace

When running a fleet of vehicles, the odd accident or breakdown is inevitable and your insurance will help to make sure that repairs are made and your vehicle is back on the road as soon as possible. The level of excess and how it will impact the premium needs to be taken into consideration, bearing in mind the higher the excess the lower the premium.  From time to time, however, extensive damage may mean that a vehicle is out of action for a number of days. As such, you may want to look for an insurance provider that offers a replacement vehicle until yours is returned to you. Using a system such as Rideshur Insurance, risk management is part of the package, which doesn’t just help reduce the cost of insurance but also helps keep the fleet on the road generating revenue.

Click and connect

Now that you’ve got all of your information to hand, it’s time to start shopping around for your fleet vehicle insurance policy.  As you’ll soon discover, there are tons of insurance companies out there and, at times, the choice can be a little baffling.  The information you’ve gathered in the first sections of this article will provide a checklist that will allow you to shortlist appropriate companies.  Always check the fine print carefully when considering an insurance policy and, don’t be afraid to have a frank discussion with them regarding the terms and guidelines. This will help you save money when renewing your policy, with options such as in-policy changes to your insurance that save you having to wait for a renewal date to come around.

When getting started with fleet insurance, it’s important to take your time and to make sure that you’re choosing a policy that covers all of your requirements and which will be cost-effective. How you want to pay your premium also needs consideration, with options such as paying an annual upfront premium, pay usage based or per trip insurance where you can influence your premium cost in real time within policy premium reductions. As such, this is never a decision to be rushed into.

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