Turning to commercial vehicles, Finaccord estimates that there were 8.38 million fleet commercial vehicles across these ten countries in 2011, plus another 593,000 fleet buses and coaches. France has the largest number of fleet commercial vehicles, at 1.87 million, ahead of Germany and the UK (1.73 million and 1.45 million respectively).

For this sector, Italy is a distant fourth, with 774,000 fleet commercial vehicles, because its economy is dominated by small and micro-businesses. Finaccord calculates that EUR 6.58 billion of motor insurance premiums were paid for these commercial vehicles in 2011, with road haulage companies paying EUR 1,323 million of this figure and operating lease firms paying EUR 543 million.

Adds Parry: “The challenge in the fleet insurance market is to understand the risks involved in detail and to reduce costs, and there are many different ways to do this. Large fleets can be rated on their own claims record, and improving driver behaviour is key for them. For smaller fleets, affinity schemes with trade associations can play a similar role, by underwriting a large number of vehicles with a similar risk. There is huge potential value in the use of telematics for both large and small fleets. At present it helps insurers mostly with assistance and with recovering stolen vehicles, and it can be essential when working with car hire companies in particular, not just to reduce theft but also to provide detailed information about collisions to assist with claims settlement. The next steps are to introduce pay-as-you-drive – and pay-how-you-drive – insurance policies, which have been launched for fleets in the UK. Widespread adoption of this could revolutionise fleet insurance and assistance over the next five years.”