27/02/2018
When operating a grey fleet, it is important that you, and your drivers, understand which type of insurance is needed for the type of car usage is undertaken
How grey fleets affect your fleets insurance
If one of your employees is driving on inappropriate insurance, this could cause implications for you and your business.
With car insurance there are generally five types of cover:
• Social, domestic and pleasure, excluding commuting
• Social, domestic and pleasure, including commuting
• Class one business use
• Class two business use
• Class three business use
The first two types of cover do not cover business use, however, this is not always understood by employees.
Business cover insurance includes class one, class two and class three.
So how can you ensure your drivers are correctly covered?
Speak to the insurer
Ask your drivers to contact their insurer and provide an email or letter confirmation of whether business use is included in their policy and what their definition of business use is.
Outsource insurance checks
Depending on the size of your fleet, insurance checks can take up a lot of unnecessary time. Because of this, it may be easier to outsource this task to a leasing or risk Management Company who will be able to ensure everything is correct.
Update company literature
Your drivers need to understand the different types of insurance and the suitable one to use for their role. Having specific literature that explains how to ensure they’re correctly insured makes sure that everyone is on the same page and understands what they should be doing.
Extend your fleet insurance
It is possible to extend your own fleet insurance to include grey fleet drivers. However, be careful as there could be unseen restrictions within your policy.
Extra care should be taken if a fleet driver decides to use their spouses or other relative’s vehicle for a business journey instead of their own, as this could implicate their insurance.
You should ideally be checking your driver’s insurance certificates at least annually if not quarterly, or when the policy is up for renewal.
How do you deal with grey fleet insurance? Let us know on Twitter and LinkedIn.
