You need insurance for your fleet vehicles because there is no telling when disaster strikes, and you have to dole out your profits to cover the damages. But the cost of insurance coverage itself is not constant, and if you’re not careful, you may end up paying more than you have to for your fleet. The most obvious way to keep the insurance costs down is to avoid having accidents.
If you manage to keep a decent track record, your insurance costs will go down, and vice versa.
But if things were this simple, why would you be reading this article?
Fret not, we’ve shared the effective strategies to help you keep your fleet insurance costs to a minimum. Read on, so you never pay more than you have to.
Here are our top 5 tips:
#1) Assess Your Fleet Regularly
Your first step should be to do a thorough assessment and fleet risk management. Brush through the stats and review all the data available, this is vital for making a fair assessment of the situation. Assessing the risks will let you know where you stand and how best to take a position when negotiating the insurance costs with your provider.
Next, you need to use the data – discuss things with your insurance agent and ask them what they think about your performance history. If you’ve had accidents in the past, ask them to compare your stats with the baseline average in the industry to see how you fare in comparison. This way, you’ll know how best to negotiate.
If you have already compiled all the accident reports for your fleet and underlined the common denominators, then you’ll have something to talk about. But don’t keep your discussion stuck in the past, based on the information you have, you can show the insurance provider how you have taken concrete steps to prevent such accidents now that you know what the causes are.
Assess your situation, gather all the information you can, and present yourself in a confident, informed manner.
#2) Train Your Drivers To Act More Responsibly
The most relevant factor when it comes to your fleet risk levels is how well your drivers perform.
If your workers are more responsible, then the likelihood of accidents will drop accordingly. Accidents happen due to negligence, if your drivers act responsibly, then your record will remain spotless – of course, crashes can happen despite this, but you can at least minimize the odds.
The more you emphasize how much you value road safety before your drivers, the more they’ll care about it too. But saying and doing are not the same – you must take concrete steps in this regard. You should organize training sessions and workshops for your drivers to better acquaint them with all they need to know about road safety and what is at stake here.
Also, make your company policy clear in this regard and how you will not tolerate unsafe on-road behavior.
If you get your drivers to become more responsible, perhaps get rid of the inflexible few who don’t care about your business policy, and strictly monitor the progress of your workers, things will surely improve. People respond positively to strong leadership – you don’t have to be bossy, only strong.
#3) Don’t Hold Back From Enforcing Safe Driving Protocols
This is where you need to show how competent of a leader you are, and how you will make sure that everyone follows through with your guidelines. First, you begin with pointing out the drivers who are either defiant or indifferent. If someone is consistently delivering poor performance, you can’t ignore it, you either need to get them to improve themselves or take a strong decision.
If one of your drivers has a poor track record, you might end up having to pay 10% more for your insurance premium!
You can either try in-car tutor devices, online safety training, close monitoring – whatever works, to ensure that poor performers improve themselves and don’t create more trouble for you. And if nothing works, you need to spare your business the excessive costs.
#4) Use A Fleet Management System To Better Monitor Your Drivers
Fleet management devices have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, and now you can monitor much more than the live location of your fleet cars. If you want to, you can track the performance of your fleet drivers as well. Fleet tracking software usually shares details and stats which show how well or poorly your drivers followed your safety rules.
This information includes the average speed, instances of speeding (and unsafe driving), distance traveled, location history, and so on. Based on this information, you’ll be able to better assess everyone, reward good performers for a job well done, and try to improve those who seem to lag a bit.
Consider it a business investment and get a fleet tracking system for your fleet if you haven’t already.
#5) Review Your Position Before Renewing Your Insurance Policy
When you see that you have successfully brought down the risk factor and implemented concrete protocols to lower the chance of an accident, you’ll see things improve in general. And when you go forward with renewing your insurance policy, discuss these things with your insurance provider. Show them all that you have done so that they can re-assess your position.
Rideshur provide telematics insurance, which can also help you save even more on your insurance costs.
Bottom Line
Hopefully, after reading through this article, you now have a much better idea about how insurance coverage costs vary and what you can do to keep things under a reasonable limit. Just maintain a good track record, lay stress on driver safety, and prioritize the important stuff such as maintenance, setting up a fleet management system, etc.
Remember that insurance coverage is not optional for fleet owners – you don’t want to be hit by a major financial disaster and be completely unprepared when that happens. But at the same time, you can’t be overpaying for your insurance because you’ve got a business to run.
We wish you all the best in your endeavors and sincerely hope that you manage to cut your insurance costs to a suitable level!