Fleet Insurance – Ireland – Avoid price hikes in 2010

It’s late 2009 and the ‘hard insurance market cycle’ has arrived. This is part of the traditional insurance cycle which will see insurance prices rise for a period of years until they hit the top again and start to fall.  The increases may start at 10% – 15% per year but they could get worse than that. Many business people will remember hikes of up to 50% during previous hard-market cycles.

For this reason, it is important for business to immediately start looking at ways to reduce insurance costs.

Motor Fleet insurance prices are one of the first areas of insurance to get the increase and as a result, business all over the country will feel the pain.

There are some things you can do to help and we have outlined some suggestions as follows:

Improve your driver profile
Insurance companies want drivers who are over 25 with full, clean, EU licences. So try to reduce the number of drivers who fall outside this group. If you have a large fleet, then one or two young drivers may not cost  anything extra, but it is an important area to explore at renewal.

Reduce number and size of vehicles
This may seem like common sense but business owners should review this matter.
Are all vehicles in use, all of the time?
Would a rigid do the job instead of a larger (and more expensive) articulated vehicle?
Could vehicles be shared among staff?
Could some work be outsourced to contractors with own vehicles?

Work with staff to reduce accidents/claims
Do you have an incentive for staff not to have accidents? It could be in the form of a bonus to staff who don’t have accidents during the year. It could be a penalty for staff who have accidents during the year. Look at your claims experience and try to establish why accidents have occurred and how can they be eradicated in future.

Pay for small claims
It is important that all accidents be reported to insurers, but it can often make financial sense to pay small claims out of company funds. In the long term this leads to a better claims experience which will reduce the fleet premium at renewal and encourage other insurers to quote for the business.

Reduce the vehicle values
Whilst it is important not to underinsure, reducing the value of your vehicles may incur a small saving on your fleet insurance premium.

Reduce cover
You may need comprehensive cover on some vehicles but not on all vehicles. Consider reducing the cover on lower value vehicles or on all of your fleet to obtain a saving. It is important to discuss the saving with your provider at renewal as in some cases this does not make a big difference. But it is important to ask.

Consider insuring private vehicles separately
Private cars may incur substantially higher costs when insured as part of a fleet, than would be the case if they were insured separately by the director in a personal capacity. Consider this option. If insured separately, you may be able to secure more policy benefits such as ‘no claims bonus protection’, driving other cars etc.
It may also be an option to take a young driver off the fleet and insure them separately on an individual policy.

We have been arranging fleet insurance (under our parent company) since 1980 and we work to get you the best price by calling on our panel of Irish & international insurers.

For a competitive fleet insurance quotation, contact us now. We will look at every option possible to save you money on your motor fleet insurance.

If you would like a quotation, contact James Martin on 1890-399-399 or click here to email us directly