How do you view your vehicle fleet insurance? Is it just an unnecessary expense that you can’t avoid and that you can’t control? Do you expect your fleet insurer to increase the premium at the next renewal and there is nothing that you can do about it?
By Willers Baard, Managerial Consultant, Eqstra Financial Services
This has changed and you can control it.
You as a Fleet Owner now have the opportunity to identify and control the root cause of your claims and losses and drive the prevention of many of your claims, thereby having a say in the loss amounts that inevitably leads to higher premiums, increased excesses and at worst, the cancellation of your insurance arrangement.
The answer lies in TELEMATICS.
Modern telematic systems are installed in fleet vehicles and directly interact with your vehicles and contact centres to exchange information and gather vital vehicle and driver behaviour information that can be analysed to enable you to carry out “root cause analyses” and determine behaviours or movements that leads to claims.
Telematics can offer you real-time insights into managing and monitoring the risk exposure of your fleet. Telematics are specifically designed to help fleet managers monitor and control driving behaviour. With telematics you can retrain repeat offenders on an individual basis as you will know them by name. You can minimise the risk of accidents and reduce the cost of your fleet insurance by instilling a culture of safe driving in your business.
Telematics play a crucial role in keeping your assets safe and your “wheels” rolling. They are an essential element to include in your overall risk management strategy to reduce the cost of your fleet insurance because it helps insurers analyse risks better. By controlling the risk you can earn discounts on insurance of up to 15% of the annual premium.
At EQSTRA, our inhouse telematics provider, GPS Tracking Solutions is one such service provider that can assist you to get your fleet risks under control.
Here are some of the control measures and advantages to be gained by installing a telematics solution:
Maximum speed governing : GPS-TS provides an active control mechanism to limit speeding. This provides a preventative return on investment to the fleet operator. You can either govern a vehicle at a maximum speed or per speed zone.
Remote Imobilisation : GPS-TS has the capability to remotely immobilise or mobilise a
vehicle to ensure correct driver and vehicle allocation.
Excessive Idle Shutdown : GPS – TS provides an automated customizable idle shutdown facility. One hour of idling is equivalent to between 80 – 120 minutes of driving.
Automated Reporting Platform : GPS – TS provides an automated reporting platform based on customizable requirements. Reports are automated daily, weekly or monthly, supplying information to everyone from the driver to top management. This will raise performance and reduce costs.
Intelligent Driver Identification : GPS – TS caters for a wide variety of driver identification methods. Biometric driver identification ensures that AARTO compliance is guaranteed and provides for a 100% proof access control and time and attendance mechanism. The system also caters for automated license management to ensure only valid licenses for the particular type of vehicle.
Vision manager : GPS-TS supports camera/video devices, tracking software and a mobile app that can monitor your fleet’s location. This type of solution supports a wide variety of accelerometer generated events that can trigger a video alarm that continuously records trips that can be remotely viewed or downloaded with 3G/4G or wi-fi.
Typical functionality of the solution that can successfully reduce risk include:
- Vehicle remote management
- GPS route playback and route monitoring
- Driver behaviour analysis and speed monitoring
- Cab and all sides monitoring
- Fuel tank monitor
- Evidence management
- Alarm management
Your insurance claims mostly start with the way that you manage your fleet and the way that your drivers operate your vehicles. In most instances control over your fleet will have an automatic positive impact on the losses resulting in claims under your fleet insurance.
Control your insurance risks and you will control your insurance premium.
EQSTRA Financial Services is an authorised financial services provider offering its customers custom designed comprehensive motor cover, underwritten by Guardrisk Insurance Company, tailored to provide an accident control program resulting in overall fleet cost reduction. Through expert advice and a wide range of risk management initiatives, particularly in the commercial fleet space, we are geared to be your provider of choice when it comes to your insurable interests. Contact us on telephone number 0860 111 820 for more information on how can we cover you.
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