As we present to fleets, this question comes up regularly because, quite
rightly, any new investment needs to be cost-justified and in the area
of Fleet Risk, many decision-makers still view this kind of program as a
‘nice-to-have’ as opposed to an essential aspect of running a fleet.
In overview terms, RVM sees four main areas of potential savings and
several smaller areas that are available (to greater or lesser degrees) as a
result of choosing our “Full Circle” solution:
Fleet Insurance Costs – Typical Insurance Savings: 10%
to 25% of Premium
First; we see an opportunity to reduce
fleet insurance costs from many angles of view. Clearly premiums are
partly determined by both claim numbers and costs incurred so by reducing
frequency of claims and managing accidents more closely, both these areas can
be reduced.
The fleet insurance broker can also play a key role in helping negotiate
down the premium by explaining the aims, scope and depth of the risk program to
the Insurer, who would be keen to encourage any proactive risk reduction
initiative the fleet decides upon.
As confidence in the fleet’s ability to control risk increases over
time, the fleet may choose to buy less insurance by taking cover based on Third
Party Only or a bigger policy excess, which will also result in a smaller
premium.
Accident Management Costs – Typical Claims Savings:
15% to 30% of Costs
Second; a repair bill that lands on a fleet manager’s desk isn’t the only cost
arising from an accident. There are lots of hidden ones too, such as employee time
lost and administration. In theory, including accident management within your
fleet risk management program should be able to minimise some, or all, of the
hidden costs associated with an accident. By offering vehicle downtime control, pre-negotiated
supplier terms, engineering assessments to agree the most cost effective method
of repair, third party intervention and effective uninsured loss recovery, lots
of savings can be made.
Savings By Outsourcing: 50% to
100% of current in-house spend
Third; much time and money is spent by
fleets in trying to carry out certain risk functions in-house and alongside other
duties. These functions could be much more efficiently carried out by a
specialist supplier delivering a tailored solution to the fleet.
Examples of potentially outsourced functions might include the delivery
of the risk products to the drivers, the consolidation of accumulated risk
data, the analysis of what represents high risks, the decision-making around
what remedial action to take, the measuring of how effective the program has
been.
Many fleets tend to have more than one supplier when it comes to
managing risk. This automatically builds in extra costs as the fleets
pays more than one profit cost, holds several supplier review meetings, pays
more than one invoice and negotiates several contracts.
By placing all aspects of the risk program through one supplier, the
data is automatically consolidated, there’s only one price, one meeting, one
bill, one set of management reports, one account manager and one contract. This
represents a potentially large saving compared to dealing with several suppliers.
Savings from finding undiscovered high risks: 10% to
30% of accident costs
Four; currently there may be several
high risk aspects to running a fleet that are going undiscovered and that
therefore represent a higher risk that extra cost will be incurred compared to
what would be the case if they were discovered and rectified.
Clearly the opportunity cost of eradicating high risk situations is
difficult to measure and is driven partly by how the fleet risk is currently
being assessed. However, for a fleet that doesn’t assess fleet risk, this
could be significant source of savings.
At RVM our
integrated approach allows us to help fleets to implement effective safety
policies, analyse trends and identify high risk drivers. Our Driver Training program
is targeted, timely and appropriate. The result is lower accident rates,
improved driver safety, and reduced costs.
Call us at RVM Assist Ltd on
0113 224 8800 or visit our website at www.rvmassist.co.uk if you want to save money through our “Full Circle”
program.
