Why did my fleet insurance go up, and what can I do about it?

What does an insurer look at when renewing a fleet?

Your claims history. Insurers do not price each vehicle in your fleet in isolation. From the insurer's side, the fleet is one risk, rated on its own claims pattern, the same way a single driver's history follows them. How often claims happen counts for more than any single dollar figure, and at-fault claims count for more than not-at-fault ones.

One of the fleet wordings we place lists what the premium can be worked out from: your claims history and experience, the type of vehicles, how and where they are used, the sums insured and limits, how far you travel from your base, and what your business does.

Why does one driver's claim push up the whole fleet's renewal?

Because the claims pattern belongs to the whole fleet. One driver with a run of at-fault claims can push up the renewal cost for a fleet that otherwise runs cleanly, and most owners never see it coming.

The upside is that context matters too. A genuinely not-at-fault claim, properly evidenced, is treated very differently to an at-fault one, and that is the argument worth having at renewal.

Get the evidence at the scene: your driver takes the other driver's name and registration. On the fleet wordings we place, an insurer may also waive your excess for a collision that was not your driver's fault, and one of its conditions is that the other driver and their registration are identified.

What can I do before I sign the renewal?

Ask why, claim by claim. When a renewal comes in higher, we go through the claims history with the insurer and argue the context a raw loading skips: whether a claim was genuinely not-at-fault, whether it was a one-off against an otherwise clean record, whether the driver involved is even still with the business.

Move one driver's vehicle off the fleet. If one driver's history is genuinely dragging the whole fleet's renewal up, the better move can be taking that one vehicle off the fleet schedule and placing it on its own commercial motor policy, so that driver's claims stay their own problem rather than becoming everyone else's. That is a deliberate broking decision, not a workaround, and it only works if someone is actually watching the fleet's claims pattern closely enough to notice it needs doing.

Report incidents before the terms are set. On one of the fleet wordings we place, every claim in the policy year can count at the next renewal. Report an incident after the insurer has given renewal terms, and it can revise those terms and charge more premium. So tell us when it happens, not after the renewal arrives.

What changes the cost of fleet insurance next year?

Documented driver induction, maintenance schedules, and increasingly telematics or dashcam evidence are things insurers look at, and reward with better terms, particularly as fleets grow. On another fleet wording we place, the risk management processes and technology your business uses are written in as something the insurer may consider when it sets the premium.

That evidence can influence both pricing and an insurer's willingness to compete for the risk at all. A fleet with nothing to show beyond "we have some vehicles and some drivers" is harder to price accurately and easier to load conservatively. A fleet that can show that evidence gives an insurer a genuine reason to price the risk on its actual profile rather than on the category average.

Your drivers count too. The insurers we use generally let anyone with a current licence drive your vehicles, as long as they are meeting the law. A young or inexperienced driver still carries an extra excess. A driver who has had a licence suspended or cancelled, or has previous claims, has to be disclosed to the insurer. Disclosed, that history is on the record before a claim tests it. Undisclosed, it is how an otherwise straightforward claim falls apart. Check every new driver's licence history before you hand over the keys.

So does how the fleet is set up. We put light vehicles, utes, vans and cars, on a separate policy from heavy motor, because the claims experience on the two is different enough that treating them as a single risk works against a fleet owner over time. A fleet is generally 15 or more vehicles. Below that, commercial motor policies are the usual home, and for a genuinely claims-free business they are sometimes the cheaper, better option even as the vehicle count grows. If your vehicles are rigid trucks or prime movers carrying freight as the core of the business, transport operators insurance is built for that.

Why does it matter who takes the fleet back to the market?

The biggest gap we see when we review a new client's existing fleet policy is a broker who only takes the fleet back to the market every three years instead of every one, so the holding insurer never has a reason to stay sharp.

We take the policy back to the market every year and put the holding insurer on notice: match a fair result or we move the business. That is not a promise the number comes down. It means the number you sign has been tested.

How we place a fleet and keep it matched between renewals is on our motor fleet insurance page.

Frequently asked questions