The driving charity Brake, run with the support of Balfour Beatty Plant & Fleet Services, has announced the date, venue and line-up for its 10th annual awards ceremony, which will be held in June at the MacDonald Burlington Hotel in the heart of the England’s second city, Birmingham.

Targeting achievers in commercial fleet safety, the function will reward the best in class for organisations that have contributed massively to road safety in the last twelve months.

Many of the awards are for innovations we have covered here on cheapvaninsurance.co.uk over the last couple of months, including reducing carbon footprints with emmission levels, analysing crash sites and groundbreaking methods of enhancing fuel efficiency.

If you believe your business has contributed to road saftety in the fleet industry you can submit your details – free of charge – on the online form promoting the event here: http://www.brake.org.uk/friend-of-brake/fsf_award.htm

There is a catch (it is a charity event, after all) – in order to be considered for the award, you must book at least one seat at the networking event.

If you are attending on your own, the charge will be £110 or, if you can organise a party of 10 people, you can secure a private table for £1,000, saving £10/per head. This can be submitted on the form in the link above or you can e-mail the details for booking alone to [email protected]

This is still cheap when you take into consideration the quality of the venue, a pre-dinner reception with drinks, followed by a three-course meal (wine included) access to the casino and you can dance the night away to the disco tunes.

This year’s sponsors are Arval, who received a commendation in the 2011 ceremony for the “Road Safety in the Community Award”. Individual awards are also sponsored by other organisations who recognise the outstanding job that the Fleet Safety Forum does for raising public and commercial awareness of fleet safety issues that may otherwise go unaddressed.

At time of writing, there are still opportunities to put your name in front of a receptive audience of the upper echelons of the the fleet commercial industry by part-sponsoring the event – a flyer can be downloaded as a pdf @ http://www.fleetsafetyforum.org/docs/flyer-12-awards.pdf to see if your business fits the profile of the event; you can also take the first steps to raising your brand awareness by e-mailing Katie Shephard of the Brake charity on [email protected]

If you’re in the commercial fleet business and fancy a night out in Brum, for those in fleet car, truck and van insurance as well as the manufacturing side of the industry, this networking awards event is as good an excuse as your likely to get, this year.

If you enter ‘van insurance‘ into Google or any of the other major search engines, you will return millions of results.

Do you have time to visit each and every one of those sites? Of course not – you’ve got far better things to be getting on with – like running your business, for instance.

With the economy set to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future – this week’s announcement by the government that a young couple with two children will be over £1000 per annum worse off in 2015 than they are now sums up everything that the Con-Dem government feel towards the working classes, for me – the onus really has been put back on the working man to save as much as he can, where he can.

For the sole trader, there is perhaps more scope to do this than the man who clocks on and off, working for a larger organisation.

The right tools for the job

Every workman – including a humble DIY’er like myself – knows how easy a job can be if you’ve got the right tools. For a sole trader, that means everthing from buying the right van, chamois leathers, drill bits, bread baskets – even the software to generate invoices. The more time you take researching your contracts and the tools to do that job, the easier it will be on you, your time and, most importantly, your pocket.

This is equally true for your commercial vehicle insurance. Many businessmen just look at their cover policy, send it off when it’s time to renew and bingo the broker has pocketed the savings, not the van driver / business proprietor – that’s you!

Fully Comp, Third Party, Third Party Fire & Theft – which one?

Theoretically, every business owner in the land would love to insure their van fully comprehensive. However, if you’re a start-up business with no no claims or are going self-employed and are looking for cheap van insurance for a young driver, you may struggle to budget for that, especially if you only have one or two contracts to get you started.

It is legal to have some van insurance before you take your van on the road, Third Party (where the insurance cover’s another driver’s damage, but not your own) is the absolute basic requirement. You can add fire and theft which, as the tag suggests, covers you if your van is stolen or destroyed due to being set ablaze.

Every business is different and, until basic components of van insurance policies are standardised, so is every commercial insurance broker; we cannot tell you which van cover is best for your business.

What we would recommend is to take your search for cheap van insurance as seriously as any other aspect of your business.

Be certain of the cover you need (so you’re not paying too little or too much) and then use the Internet to compare van insurance quotes. It’s easier than you think.

From tip to toe of the UK, January has blown in more than a just a fresh start to the new year. From Cornwall to The Highlands, Britian has taken a lashing from gale-force winds, torrential rain and even snow in places.

For van- and truck-drivers nationwide, motorways and A roads – in fact, anywhere exposed to the driving winds – the usual delivery runs become perilous missions as the battle to remain upright on the road takes precedent.

The storms have put not only drivers on alert but also truck and van insurance brokers as they expect a wave of claims in light of recent events.

Likewise, with thousands of households being left without power, trees being ripped out of the ground by their roots and unforgiving winds tearing walls down literally brick by brick, insurance call centres all across the country are on standby for a barrage of calls today as home-owners lodge claims for compensation.

Unfortunately, two commercial vehicle drivers suffered the worst possible fate as Britain was held to ransom in the unabating conditions.

One driver from Kent was crushed as a tree fell onto his van after being blown over by the gales and, also in the south of England, in Dorset, a truck driver was pinioned beneath his lorry as a freak gust blew over his vehicle.

Scotland’s two major airports, Glasgow and Edinburgh, had to periodically close during the day. Reminiscent of the beginning of last year, Scotland again seemed to be on the wrong of the stick as the weather was unrelenting.

We all remember hard pressed politicians north of the border last year being interviewed against the backdrop of snowbound motorways attempting to appease the public by stating that the services were doing all that they could in the face of unprecedented conditions. After the lashings and heavy snowfall already this week, one really does fear the worst again this year.

With flood warnings being posted all across the British Isles and winds whistling through every nook and cranny showing no signs of letting up, it is critial for drivers who have to take to the road to be prepared for every eventuality.

At the very least, take blankets and extra food and water out on the road for every trip you have to make. Better advice is to invest in a survival kit, such as as those mentioned in our article – A man, a van, a winter plan. For the outlay, you will think it a cheap investment should you ever have cause to use it.

And, as always, ensure that your van insurance policy incorporates every eventuality for winter driving, especially breakdown cover if you’ve not taken it out separately – it can be painful enough driving through a UK winter, without having to pick up a bill due to lack of appropriate cover.

Be careful, drive safe.

When questioning 250 of the key decision makers when it comes to managing fleet vehicle ownership, the Alphabet report has issued its second paper, entitled ‘Risk, Reward and Rationale’.

This second report in the series highlights the fleet managers’ fears as they cite speeding, using mobiles and drinking as the main concerns for the safety of its drivers.

The report commission took in several aspects, not only looking into assessing and balancing risk but also to what extent to allocate your fleet amongst staff, for field sales and van drivers alike.

One of the concerns of the instigators of the Alphabet report was that employers were, under the current economic constraints, ignoring its duty of care towards its employees. Especially on the back of a similar assessment from five years ago which suggested that only slightly more than a third (37%) of managers had drawn up plans to address such risks.

The results in this second report show an overwhelming increase with almost all of those managers surveyed (98%) making some sort of contingency to protect the drivers that represent their organisation.

Alphabet’s chief exec Richard Schooling has perhaps some explanation which would explain why there has been such an increase in such a short space of time.

“The dramatic increase in the number of fleet professionals creating risk management policies is an outcome of the corporate manslaughter legislation. This act has prompted operators to better educate employees on driver safety and implement policies to protect themselves from prosecution.”

Not only does this investment in staff go a way to protecting the organisation and the drivers, but, when presented with this evidence, it is difficult for an insurance firm to refuse cheap van insurance when next applying for renewal.

This concern for drivers’ safety has even been put above operating costs and carbon footprints, with 7 out if 10 UK and EU companies highlighting risk management as their priority.

A similar number of managers have, however, expressed concern about individuals using private vehicles to run company errands instead of fleet vehicles from the pool.

Known as ‘The Grey Area’, using domestic instead of commercial vehicles takes the responsibility of key performance indicators out of the control of the company, which defeats the object of the risk assessment exercise.

Schooling added that company-owned fleet vehicles “…give employers more control over the quality, insurance, emissions and condition of vehicles used on business.”

This area is now becoming a prime focus for further cost-cutting; with fleet van insurance and company fuel accounts, costs can be controlled, but when it comes to reimbursing individuals who take the onus on themselves, they have no control whatsoever.

As businesses across the UK look to cut costs by traditional, obvious means, there are increasing improvements in technology that can help reduce bottom-line losses in ways previously thought unimaginable.

More and more, businesses are looking into sophisticated software not only to track vehicles on the road and improve their efficiency, as far as targeting their drivers for ‘just-in-time‘ deliveries but also protecting their van insurance policy’s no claims bonuses and reducing renewal policies by showing their brokers that they’e serious about protecting their investment should the worst happen and their vans be stolen.

Management Systems integral to progression

Drive Solutions have not only spotted the need for this level of integration into any business that operates a fleet of vans, but took fleet management to a whole new level.

Recognised by authority

The Institute of Transport Management not only acknowledge the system that Drive Software Solutions are supplying to the market place but they also recognise the role that this type of software plays in the day-to-day running of everyday business.

Bottom line is what matters

Irrespective of what investment and cost-saving measures you take elsewhere in your business, if your trade requires carrying tools to site or delivering product to the line side, protecting your fleet is imperative – this is inclusive of maintenance of your vehicle to deliver and ensuring that your entire fleet has the correct fleet van insurance.

In addition to monitoring your vehicles, you have to look at how well your drivers are performing. Constant assessment and ongoing training is key to maximising the efficiency of your investment in management software, through your drivers’ ability to deliver.

Peak Performance were likewise acknowledged by The Institute for their contribution as pioneers in driver training and assessing their subsequent skills.

The reason we cover this sort of topic here on cheapvaninsurance.co.uk is because everything you can do to show your van insurance provider that you are serious about your business will help you reduce your renewal quote when it comes around to taking out your next policy.