Most organisations understand the value of fleet risk
reduction initiatives and how they can generate quantifiable results.
The Benefits of including
Claims
An enduring risk reduction strategy relies on regular
analysis and review of data that comes from all aspects of road risk, including
claims. Many fleets look at licence
check results and online assessment results for clues as to how to proceed but
often miss an important ingredient - a real understanding of claim causation.
A short-sighted risk reduction strategy omits to really
understand why accidents happen and key objectives may fall short as a result. Equally, where a company’s internal
procedures may be having an influence on accident rates, risk reduction
initiatives will have only a limited effect.
By
studying the causes of claims within a fleet it is possible to identify the
most common incident types which, in turn, will lead to decisions about the
changes that need to be made to reduce accident frequency.
These
changes could include training but they may also require a rethink on other
things such as car park geography (if this is where most minor incidents are
occurring) or journey planning for drivers, for instance.
Of
course, accidents occur throughout the year, which means information is
accumulating to form trends and exceptions. So once a fleet includes accidents
within the scope of risk management, we need to take a longer-term view.
The Long Term View
A difficult message to get across is the importance of
a longer term view of risk management as many fleets see the process as having
an end date. In truth, drivers need a
constant drip-feed of the safety message and management need to make sure future
changes to company policies do not impact road safety negatively.
If a fleet operator has ticked all the safety boxes by
implementing a broad risk reduction scheme, management may assume the job is
done and then implement operational changes that undo all that good work. Logically, a short term fix does not apply to
safety culture change. Such a
broad-reaching and long-term objective takes time; it is fragile and can be
quickly and easily undone.
From our research, fleets are good at fixing one-off
problems but not so good at consistently applying long-term changes. Equally, when under pressure, a reaction to
an immediate business need will cause safety to slip down the priority list.
As a result, specialist help from an outsourced
supplier (that is only focused on reducing accident frequency and cost) may be
the way to achieve the long term view.
How RVM Can Help
RVM’s
expertise in fleet accident management led to the development of our all-encompassing
road risk management programme: Full Circle.
The reason an inclusive solution is better for
fleets is because it is simpler, cheaper and more accountable because all the
data is in one place via one portal controlled by one team on one number under
one contract and for just one monthly payment.
Working
in response to client feedback, Full Circle from RVM represents an outsourced and
packaged solution that facilitates consistent and long-term action directly
with drivers.
Outsourcing
all aspects of risk to one supplier also solves other fleet challenges such as:
- Assessing risk data from several suppliers or sources
- Setting fleet-wide risk tolerance policies
- Monitoring the success of risk reduction measures
- Measuring results against agreed safety policy objectives
Full
Circle integrates the principal elements of a road risk program including:
- Driver profiling
- Driver training
- Licence checking
- Grey fleet monitoring
- Accident management
Not
only does this integrated approach allow a fleet to refine its risk reduction
policies in line with internal and external influencing factors but it uses
accident management as a tool to refine risk tactics as well as to prove if
those tactics are working or not.
