Many businesses own or lease a number of cars, vans, lorries, or HGVs that they rely on each day. Managing a fleet of vehicles can be very expensive for a business and one of the expenses that sometimes seems harder to control is the cost of motor fleet insurance.

Fleet insurance is effectively bulk buying your insurance from a single supplier which is why in turn you can be rewarded with a discount. Fleet Insurance covers both small and large fleets of commercial vehicles and it might be a surprise to know that you can insure from three vehicles upwards on one fleet insurance policy. Your business fleet can be worth anything from millions to a few thousand pounds and you can still benefit from reduced premiums and hours of administration making the whole process much more manageable.

These policies are designed to be more efficient and easier to manage than numerous different insurance policies for individual vehicles. Fortunately, specialist insurance brokers limit the burden of fleet insurance by increasing the flexibility of the policy to cover an assortment of vehicles and drivers on one policy, providing you with just one renewal date and payment date to administer.

So, what do you need to know before purchasing your fleet insurance and how can you minimise your risk as well as costs?

In order to gain the best fleet insurance for your needs you need to take into account your fleet size and assess the frequency of use of your vehicles. Each of these factors will influence your fleet insurance costs. Knowing this information will help you to understand your fleet insurance requirements and ensure you do not end up paying out for unnecessary components within your coverage and make sure you get the best out of your fleet vehicle insurance.

In order to get the correct fleet insurance policy you need to consider the usage of your vehicles. For example, if you run a taxi fleet you will need either public or private hire insurance. If your business carries goods then you will either need ‘carriage of own goods’ to cover tradesman’s tools or company products being transported. ‘Haulage insurance’ is needed for those businesses offering long distance hire and reward services, and ‘courier van insurance’ is the correct type of fleet insurance for local multi-drops of hire and reward services.

This is where without the right knowledge purchasing your fleet insurance can become a bit daunting, however, a specialist insurance broker can advise and offer their expertise to make sure you have the right fleet vehicle insurance in place when you need it most, as well as advising on how to keep your fleet car insurance premiums down amidst the hype on insurance premiums soaring due to compensation changes, whiplash claims and taxes.

When you are looking for your fleet insurance it can be best to cover ‘any vehicle’ which will offer you the maximum protection. This is particularly important for larger fleets where vehicles will come and go throughout the life of the policy. Should you forget or accidently miss updating your policy schedule information and a vehicle is involved in an accident but was not listed, your claim can be invalidated without this feature.