ZURICH Financial Services Group has awarded National Car Rental a major contract worth £600,000 a year for the supply of daily rental vehicles to its staff.

It has named National as sole supplier of its short-term vehicles and one of the key aspects of the contract is Zurich's use of National's online rental management system, called carhirebooker.com, which provides the opportunity to monitor and control rental charges.

National will tailor a scheme to Zurich's needs and authorised staff will be able to book vehicles online at any time of the day or night.

The new system will also allow Zurich's fleet executives to review reservation history per driver and control access levels.

Driver profiles will also be created so that when drivers or bookers log on to hire a vehicle all the details are pre-filled, simplifying the reservation process.

Zurich purchasing consultant Ron Mitchell said: 'National was chosen as sole supplier for Zurich because the company showed the ability to offer an excellent service, a broad range of rental choice and the flexibility to meet our specific requirements. I have every confidence that this is the start of a fantastic new partnership.'

Neil McCrossan, vice-president sales and marketing for National Car Rental, said: 'This contract was won based not only on the size of our fleet but on the flexibility, IT solutions and customer service we can offer Zurich to enable the company to better manage and potentially reduce its expenditure on daily rental.

'These proved to be significant factors in us winning the contract from an existing long-term supplier and we are delighted to work with such a respected business as Zurich.'

National operates 138 locations in the UK and has a fleet of 35,000 vehicles. Worldwide it runs a fleet of 275,000 vehicles.