Nexus Vehicle Rental has revealed a sharp increase in the number of business drivers claiming damages attributed to potholes. 

Its rental booking and management information platform IRIS holds customer data showing vehicle damage attributed to potholes has risen by 40% since 2016.

In the first four months of this year, Nexus has already processed 1,488 wheel and tyre related damage claims, which customers link to rising road damages.

David Brennan, CEO at Nexus Vehicle Rental, said: “Although it was a particularly harsh winter this year, if the number of pothole related incidents perpetuate at the current rate, we’re expecting to process double the number of damage claims as last year, as our rising numbers of hired vehicles encounter damaged roads.

“Quite frankly this is unacceptable to us, our customers, suppliers and insurers.”

Providing access to a vehicle supply chain of 550,000 vehicles across 2,000 UK locations, Nexus Vehicle Rental does not actually own any assets.

“Due to this, our rental technology serves to protect our customers and ensures any damages invoiced to them are fair,” explained Brennan. “We automatically invalidate around 30% of damage claims which leads to cost savings for our customers.”

Although the Government’s Pothole Action Fund has pledged £296 million to fixing the issue, Brennan says he wants to see guarantees that this is spent effectively to prevent roads from deteriorating further, causing damaging to vehicles and disruption to journeys.

The Asphalt Industry Alliance claims 40,000 miles of road need to be repaired with the number of potholes being filled falling year-on-year. 

This precedes the AA’s recent report claiming pothole damage is costing insurers almost £1m a month in repairs. It’s survey also shows 88% of drivers feel road quality has declined since 2008.

Nexus customer data showing number of pothole related incidents:

Year	Total number of pothole related damage claims	Monthly number of pothole related damage claims	Year-on-year increase per percentage of accidents
2013	1,696	141	-
2014	2,226	185	+38%
2015	2,267	188	0%
2016	2,135	178	-17%
2017	2,556	213	+13%
2018*	4,464 (1,488 Jan-Apr 2018)	372	+24%

 

*Estimated total to 31 December 2018