How To Save On Fleet Insurance In 2025
By Andy Price
If you’re a fleet owner, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed a rise in your fleet insurance quotes over the past couple of years. According to government figures, fleet insurance premiums rose by an average of 21% between 2022 and 2024. Many businesses have seen fleet insurance costs rise by as much as 50% in the past year alone, and some industry experts predict that there will be further rises of 10% in 2025. A recent article in the Peterborough Telegraph stated that local businesses have seen fleet costs rise by as much as 100%. With around 79,000 UK companies operating a fleet of over 500,000 vehicles, getting cheaper fleet insurance is important for a lot of businesses.
To help them do just that, here is Coversure Peterborough’s guide to getting cheaper fleet insurance. As one of the UK’s leading independent fleet insurance brokers with over 50 years of experience, we can offer you industry insiders’ tips on saving on your company fleet insurance.
We hope this guide will prove useful, but if you’d like some personalised advice or a fleet insurance quote, please call us on 01733 915 050 or request a callback.
Why Have Fleet Insurance Quotes Gone Up?
This is a question we’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of years, though interestingly enough, mainly by new customers who come to us looking for cheaper cover. There are several reasons why insurance quotes have risen, the main ones being:
- Rising claims costs – inflation has made the cost of repairs and of providing replacement vehicles soar. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has reported insurers handled 2.4 million motor claims in 2024, which saw insurers paying out a record £11.7 billion pounds.
- Repair and parts inflation – while inflation in the UK has fallen, energy, parts, and labour costs have remained high, with research from Epyx revealing a 35% increase in repair costs between 2020 and 2023. With parts lead times rising to over 5 weeks in many cases, insurers have begun writing vehicles off rather than fixing them, a costly business that has ramped up premiums significantly.
- A rise in the number of electric vehicles – EVs may be more reliable overall, but when they do go wrong, they can be costly to repair. Relatively limited numbers of qualified mechanics and a shortage of specialist parts mean that EVs are 25–50% more expensive to repair than their fossil-fuelled equivalents and are off the road for 10% longer, which adds to insurers’ replacement vehicle costs.
- A hardening of the fleet insurance market – the potential costs of insuring a fleet have become so high that many insurers have become much more selective as to who they will cover. This has resulted in less capacity, and fleet owners with poor claims histories have been charged significantly more, if they can find cover at all.
“Insurers need to cover their costs and have increasingly been looking at fleets’ risk profiles much more carefully than they were pre-pandemic. Brokers with limited insurer relationships or those that don’t write that much fleet business will find it harder to get competitive rates from insurers.” Andy Price Dip. CII, Managing Director, Coversure Peterborough
How To Save On Fleet Insurance In 2025
Despite the challenges in the market, there are some simple ways you can cut your fleet insurance quotes, including:
- Shop around – it’s never been more important to question your broker’s quotes and to see if someone else can offer you better cover. With insurers raising rates and becoming more risk-averse, compare quotes and brokers if you want to cut costs.
- Use an independent insurance broker that specialises in fleet insurance – fleet insurance isn’t just car insurance for multiple vehicles, it’s far more complex than that. To get a good deal on fleet insurance, talk to a broker who specialises in it and who isn’t tied to one insurer. While some insurers and wholesalers have pushed up premiums by between 20% and 100%, not all have and choosing the right broker can save you a small fortune.
“I was shocked to read that some Peterborough fleet owners have seen their fleet insurance quotes rise by 100%. Across our panel of insurers, we’ve seen rises of 5-10%, and we’ve often been able to push back on these. I get the impression some insurers just don’t have the appetite for fleets that they once did and are only taking on risks if they can guarantee they’ll make a decent return. It does pay to shop around and to use an independent fleet insurance broker” Andy Price
- Complete a risk assessment with your broker – as your policy comes up for renewal, complete a risk assessment with your broker. Certain drivers and vehicles may be pushing up your premiums, as may be some of the activities you’re undertaking, such as long runs. Your broker can help you identify these and so reduce your quotes
- Increase your excess – increasing your excess, the amount you pay in the event of a claim, can be a good way to get quotes down. A higher excess not only means the insurer will have to pay less in the event of a claim, but it also suggests that you’re confident that you won’t be making any small claims. We’ve seen fleet insurance premiums come down by as much as 10% by raising the policy excess.
- Train your drivers – a Department of Transport report on driver training suggested that if drivers had better hazard perception training it could lead to an 11% reduction in collisions. The one thing that’s guaranteed to put up your fleet insurance premiums is by having to make a claim. Fleet driver training, as offered by companies such as Business Driver or Driving Innovation, is affordable and can not only help keep the costs of your fleet insurance down, but it can help you avoid associated costs of an accident, such as repairs, time making a claim and employee absence.
- Take out a named rather than any driver policy – any driver policies are convenient, but they will cost you more.
- Consider who you insure – younger drivers, older drivers (65+), and those with poor claims records will all push up your insurance quotes, so think carefully and only add people you really need to the policy.
- Renew early – in this market, this is a must. Trying to arrange cover or a renewal a week before the policy expires will put your broker on the back foot. Try and give them at least a month to do their homework if you want to reduce your costs
- Secure Your Vehicles – while accidents are a major source of claims, theft, and to a lesser extent, criminal damage, still play a big part in driving up fleet insurance costs. So, if possible, have your vehicles always stored securely and maybe invest in vehicle tracking technology. Vehicle trackers are ideal for those running mini-fleets and can cost as little as £40
- Build up your no-claims bonus – nothing will push up premiums like a claim, so avoid making smaller ones. Some insurers offer protected no-claims cover. This means you can make a specified number of claims without losing your no-claims discount.
How To Save On Fleet Insurance In 2025
The fact is fleet owners don’t have to pay more for their cover. By following these simple steps, you can often avoid a hefty hike in your premiums. If you’d like some personalised advice on getting cheaper fleet insurance or a fleet insurance quote, please call us on 01733 915 050 or request a callback.
