Fleet News

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It’s no secret that the cost of motor insurance is rising all the time. A huge contributing factor to this is the large number of insurance scams that take place on the roads each and every year. Usually known as “crash for cash” schemes – these types of scams are designed to make quick and easy money at the expense of another party’s insurance provider.

The way insurance providers respond to these scams is by raising the price of insurance. As unfair as this is, it’s the only way that insurers can respond to an ever-growing problem.

These types of insurance scams not only affective individuals but also countless businesses that rely on the use of vehicles. Fraudsters usually aren’t picky with which type of vehicles they target so the raising insurance rates are causing a big problem across the board.

Something that’s not always discussed however, is that often insurance scams are carried out by employees within the company. This is particularly troublesome for business owners and many are now taking steps in order to combat this problem.

Ways around the problem

Below are some ways that business owners are tackling the problem of rising insurance rates due to crash for cash schemes.

  • Fleet insurance – Getting a fleet policy doesn’t directly tackle the problem of insurance scams but it does provide a way for businesses with multiple vehicles to save money on insurance. Fleet policies are typically cheaper than insuring separately so it’s definitely worth looking into. For haulage and courier delivery fleets its recommended to take out specialist courier insurance cover in addition
  • Background checks – A lot of companies are now carrying out extensive background checks on anyone who applies to work with them. This includes their insurance history and previous claims. This is one of the better ways to weed out any potential fraudsters.
  • Dash cams – There are also a growing number of businesses installing dash cams in their vehicles. Dash cams provide invaluable video evidence that can often prove who is at fault for a collision. An increasing number of insurance providers are now accepting dash cam footage in order to settle claims.

Getting fleet insurance at a competitive rate

If you do decide to get a fleet insurance policy for your business, then you’ll want to take any steps possible to keep the cost to a minimum. Below are some excellent ways to do this.

  • Make your company vehicles secure – Making your vehicles secure will go a long way to reducing the amount you’ll pay for a company fleet insurance policy. Installing alarms, immobilisers and tracking devices is always recommended.
  • Hire experienced drivers – One of the biggest factors that insurance providers take into account when calculating the cost of a policy is the age and driving history of any named drivers. For this reason, you want to make sure that any drivers you hire are experienced and have a clean licence.
  • Shop around – You should make sure that you get quotes from more than one insurance provider so you can compare them and pick the one that offers the best value for money.

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Recent Freedom of Information figures seen by the ADLV (Association for Driving Licence Verification) www.adlv.co.uk, show a significant rise in the volume and frequency of online driving licence data checking by UK Fleets. The 2016 DVLA statistics show that there was a 30.4% increase in checks by online intermediaries compared to the same period last year. The ADLV expects this growth to continue throughout 2016 and well into 2017, with the total number of checks rising from the current level of 2.35 million to a projected 3 million by March 2017. The ADLV accredits the rise to more frequent online checking of data, coupled with a broader use of other related datasets to promote ‘know your driver’ risk reduction strategies.

As Richard Payne Gill Deputy Chair of the ADLV notes, “The growth in volume is highly encouraging as it reflects that electronic checking, through a fully managed service from a professional third party, has now become a ‘best practice’ with full reporting and audit trails included. It is also a sign that the frequency of checking has increased too as fleet managers seek to both boost compliance certainty and reduce the risk from misuse and fraud. We are seeing quarterly checks becoming the norm.

Richard Payne-Gill

“There has also been a rise in the breadth of data now that is now being combined with licence information, and we are also confident that other datasets are likely to become available too including Tacho and CPC data for the UK Haulier sector. The integration of all this data will see a transformation on the overall professionalism of the sector with the ultimate benefits including major efficiency gains for Fleet operators and a marked boost for road safety.”

The current list of ADLV members that fleet managers can contact should they require online driver entitlement checks is as follows: Admin Business Solutions, Descartes Systems UK Ltd., Drivercheck Ltd., Driving Monitor, Fleet Claims Administration Ltd., GB Group plc, Intelligent Data Systems (UK) Ltd., Interactive Driving Systems Ltd., Jaama Ltd., Licence Bureau Ltd., Licence Check Ltd., Pinewood.