If life were perfect, your mobile workforce would always be in top form. Accidents would never occur. You’d be able to keep your employees safe and you'd never face the middle-of-the-night stress and worry of costly incidents and the admin that comes with it.

Unfortunately, neither life nor business are perfect. As accidents happen, fleet managers must be prepared.

Great accident management is vital for even the smallest of fleets, because expensive legal battles and negotiations with third parties are more of a threat to smaller companies. In this blog, we’ll touch on five important ways to improve your existing accident management strategy.

Learn all you need to know about Accident Management here.

Find out if outsourcing accident management could be right for your business in our quiz.

1. Establish guidelines for courtesy vehicles

It’s standard practice to allow employees to use courtesy vehicles, but it’s important to make sure you minimise risk in this area by tightening up your policy.

For one, consider providing vehicles similar in size to what employees already typically handle for work, especially if you run a fleet of larger cars or vans. Also, you may choose to limit employee upgrades to courtesy cars, which can easily eat into your fleet management budget.

2. Regularly update your driving policies

As part of a yearly review, you might take a closer look at risk-lowering measures such as restrictions on mobile phone usage [link to calling and texting policies blog], driving instructions for better fuel economy, and alternate routes for drivers in case of gridlock or other road trouble. 

While it’s important to reassess your own policies periodically, an outsourced accident management service is often the best way to cover all the hard-to-spot vulnerabilities to help you remain compliant.

3. Leverage mobile devices for incident reporting

With smartphone and mobile app technologies, you can collect more real-time incident data than ever before.

Create a policy around accident reporting, and look into apps created for that purpose. Upon choosing one, provide it to employees with full instruction on how to use it. In the event of collisions, make sure your drivers know to take photos of vehicle damage from several angles.

4. Reinforce procedures for dealing with third parties

Fleet accidents, especially ones involving serious vehicle damage or injury, are highly sensitive situations. Employees should be as attentive as if their personal car were involved. 

Have a checklist of all the details that need to be recorded, so that nothing is left out. Make sure employees accurately record third-party information. You might also lay out a full list of incident scenarios in your accident policy, so that there’s no doubt about next steps.

5. Consider outsourcing your accident management

Even if you implement all of the above, your accident policy may still have blind spots. It’s easy to miss big areas of risk, and trying to do it all yourself can hurt productivity, while increasing costs and administrative stress.

That’s why outsourcing is a smart solution. At SurePlan, we offer fleet accident management services that take the burden off your shoulders and help your business recover from incidents as soon as possible, with:

• Third-party claims handling so you avoid the stress of difficult, time-consuming negotiations over insurance.
• Lodgement of claims on your behalf which cuts down on your admin workload.
• Transparent reporting technology that provides visibility into all relevant accident and driver data, helping you lower risk and make better decisions.
• Handling of vehicle repair and replacement which includes choosing quality, cost-effective local services, scheduling repairs, and arranging for rental vehicles so that fleet downtime is minimised.

Bolstering your current accident management programme is a good way to protect your business. But going with SurePlan’s full-fledged solution can save you time and money, while managing reporting, claims, and risk assessment for you in fine detail. 

By outsourcing your accident management, if a crash happens, you’ll never be in the dark.

Is outsourcing right for your business? Find out by taking our free quiz