Commercial Fleet Insurance Coverage

Commercial fleet insurance coverage is for someone who has employees and those employees regularly drive cars as part of their job duties, such as to make sales calls, run errands or deliver items such as parcels, for example, you might want to cover yourself with some extra insurance, for peace of mind.

If your business owns one or more vehicles, you’ll need fleet insurance. This is also called fleet insurance. Commercial fleet insurance is almost identical to personal car insurance, and covers for liability and damage coverage pertaining to injury, damage or theft.

To get the most competitive fleet insurance pricing, you can search and obtain quotes from the listed insurers on this site. You should also check your company’s ratings before you begin your commercial fleet insurance search.

Check prospective employees’ driving records when you’re hiring and keep good vehicle maintenance records on file as well. If your employees take your company-owned vehicles home, make sure to specify who can drive them so that only those who are covered by your commercial fleet insurance policy drive them.

Reduce Your Commercial fleet insurance

To help reduce your commercial fleet insurance premiums, raise your deductible for the occasional claim. If one or more of your vehicles is more than 10 years old, consider dropping the collision coverage on it, since this is usually most cost-effective for older cars.

Although you can also do this for newer vehicles, it is only an option if you own the vehicle or vehicles you are insuring. Regardless, this may not be recommended for newer vehicles, since replacement cost out of pocket may far outweigh the cost of higher commercial fleet insurance premiums.

As for policy coverage limits themselves, aim for a higher amount; many commercial fleet insurance providers suggest that you have minimum liability coverage of £500,000. However, in the event that you might encounter multiparty claims, you should consider raising your liability coverage to £1 million or more.

You should also note that although this limit sounds like it will cost a lot, in general, it’s less expensive to buy large amounts of coverage on commercial vehicles than on personal ones. You can also use umbrella insurance for the higher limits.

If your business doesn’t own any vehicles, you might want non-owned and hired automobile liability coverage. This kind of coverage protects you against claims that occur when an employee is driving his or her own vehicle on company business.

Although your employee’s automobile insurance usually provides the primary coverage for a claim, the injured party can come after your company if the amount of their claim exceeds the limits of the employee’s personal insurance. This also holds true for rental cars that you may have rented for business use, since personal insurance carriers often reject claims on cars that you’ve rented for business use.

Non-owned and hired automobile liability insurance is not terribly expensive, about £100 for every £1 million in coverage. Check your business owner insurance policy; some policies include this type of insurance in their basic coverage and you may not have to pay extra for it.

To gather some quotes, approach the agent who handles your overall business insurance and see if you can obtain a quote from your existing insurance carrier for your automobile liability insurance. Most providers will offer a discount if you have more than one type of insurance with them, so you may save up to 20% in premiums by going with the carrier who already provides your business insurance coverage.

However you do so, getting this type of insurance is important, so don’t wait. Although you won’t miss it if you never have an accident, you certainly will if you have an accident and don’t have this kind of coverage.

Some quick pointers

Don’t swap names. If you’re using a car for both business and pleasure, it should still be in your business’s name on the insurance policy, not yours. The legal owner of the vehicle must be the principal insured.

Insure your entire fleet. If you own a fleet of vehicles and you park them together overnight, they are at greater risk for being damaged all at once. Ask your provider to protect your fleet by adding overnight premises exposure coverage to your existing property insurance.

When you get commercial fleet insurance coverage, ask for references, especially for providers local to you. Getting a good security provider by word-of-mouth will be more relevant to you than one from a business across town or in another state, whether via the Internet or another type of research.