Women are playing a larger part in fleet management systems now than ever before. On the face of it, that’s excellent news for business, with their catalogued better driving skills meaning less maintenance and off-road time for commercial vehicles and the hidden cost of the preferred van insurance rate that runs alongside an exemplary driving history. But all that’s about to change.
In our recent article women on top, highlighting the areas where women have truly made a difference to the fleet industry throughout the sector, one of our key points was the effect that employing female drivers can have on lowering commercial van insurance; the new ruling by the European Court of Justice, however, will change all that.
In recent times, women have been judged at least as equals within the commercial vehicle industry, with more numbers joining at the practical end of the sector behind the wheels and under the hood, through call centres and fleet management control centres, all the way to the top of the chain as Justine Greening heads up The Department of Transport. Now, due to the EU ruling, women can no longer be offered cheaper UK van insurance because of their gender.
At one time, this would have had little impact and hardly caused a ripple of conversation in the insurance industry. But with so many women qualifying for existing van insurance discounts in an organisation’s unseen costings, when it comes to renewing those policies the new ruling is bound to have an eye-watering affect.
Industries such as catering, meals on wheels services and social care have employed female drivers for decades. However, recently we see more bus and coach drivers, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers and minibus drivers for charitable causes headed up by the fairer sex. Many catering enterprises that operate vans with refrigerated or heated rear units employ only women drivers – they will see massive increases in their van insurance when the legislation comes into force at the end of this year.
If you’re looking for cheap van insurance for women drivers now to counteract the imminent rises in December, check out out cheap van insurance form to save a packet in minutes.