What is a mini fleet insurance policy?
What classifies as a mini fleet ?
These are a great set of questions and a set of questions any SME must ask themselves before they take out a mini fleet insurance.
OK let’s start with what classifies as a mini fleet insurance policy. First of all, are you a sole trader/partnership or trading as a company or a limited company. These are the norm in terms of mini fleet enquiries we get. Now do you have more than 1 vehicle. OK, great you have 2 or more. This means you qualify for a mini fleet insurance !!!
Next step . What is a mini fleet insurance? Well this gives you a policy where you can have both cars on one policy and they will both share the same renewal date. You also get the benefit of having any driver over 21, 25, or over 30 years to drive. To start the policy, it makes it cheaper if directors have no claims discount. They can use this on the vehicles so this is great news as will help to reduce the premium.
So …. This all looks pretty but let’s look at how it works. A mini fleet insurance policy only works well if you have a good claims history every year. The claims history will tell you the average amount of vehicles you had on cover during the insurance term and it will tell you the amount of claims you have had and the costs of all fault, non fault and pending claims.
The danger of a mini fleet insurance policy
If you have paid lets say 5k for a years insurance and your drivers have caused a total or 15k of fault claims. Not only will no insurer want to touch your risk, but your present insurer will put your premium up to most likely somewhere above the 15k region. So this could be an absolute disaster for an SME that needs to operate with the use of vehicles on a daily basis , but struggles with to the crippling cost of insurance.
So what’s the answer? There are two ways to look at this. Firstly do you need a fleet policy? I would personally say if you have your set named drivers on individual vehicles the risk is a lot lower than if you are to insure on an individual basis.
But if you do have drivers coming in from all angles to drive your vehicles and you do need to add additional drivers to the policy, and you do need a fleet then the answer is great fleet management !!
The more good years you have with no claims history the better your chances of keeping your premium down to a very competitive market rate.
So here we go a few good fleet management tips for you.
– Beware of any driver who has more than one fault claim .. Get them off your policy.
– Always check licenses every 6 months. Trust me drivers with points will crash !
– Install cameras in the vehicles. This is proven to reduce claims costs and driver performance.
– Make drivers pay larger x/s if they have a claim. They will definitely be more cautious!!
So this is mini fleet insurance in a nut shell. Give us a call if you need any more help !!!
