On a day when the BBC announced its association with Total Accident Management in respect to looking after their entire fleet for the foreseeable future, other sectors of the fleet vehicle industry echoed the same sentiments. 2012 will be a year of further cost-saving measures being implemented, be it hiring firms or software to control their commercial vehicle’s activities, fuel efficiency or achieving savings through cheap van insurance, something’s got to give, this year.
Unsurprisingly, fuel management is the top priority for firms in the UK this term; yes, the added fuel duty wasn’t applied by the treasury this month, but that has only been postponed until August, as things stand.
One possible way to reduce spending is to issue its van drivers with fuel cards and only top up with affiliated diesel outlets. Not only will this ensure drivers think twice about excessively using fuel but it will also help organisations with large fleets budget for future months. It will also help to underline which of their vans are optimising fuel; if it is found that smaller vans far outweigh their larger cousins in fuel consumption, by changing their fleet accordingly, it will also help to cheapen the costs of their fleet van insurance in the long term, too.
Ongoing investigations by the industry leaders in recent years have started to drill down into areas of their fleet operations where real cost-savings can be made. Of these, approaching different van insurance providers with the promise of large numbers of commercial vehicles, with the added bonuses of the owners private vehicles qualifying in some instances, too, has essentially helped combat the rising cost of van insurance that has dogged fleet costs in recent times.
Although this aspect looks to continue despite OFT investigations, by shopping around with your vehicle portfolio can genuinely help cheapen existing premiums, as commercial vehicle insurance providers fight to gain market share from their competitors and as a measure to compete with van insurance comparison sites, which have helped keep repeat insurance prices unrealistically low.
By employing all of the correct procedures to keep outgoings to a minimum, one spokesman for the industry suggested that cost savings of 10-15% were achievable. With regular servicing, optimising cheap van insurance and keeping an eye on mileage and fuel costs, this is perhaps not too unrealistic. Whether or not the van insurance industry are allowed by the Office of Fair Trading to continue increasing their premiums will be a major factor in the final realisation of any cost savings fleet managers hope to achieve this year. We will see in Spring, when the final verdicts are announced.
To see if your van insurance premium is likely to change this year, we have researched some of the best brokers in the market place on this site; using our comparison facility, get a cheap van insurance quote in minutes for your business, this year.