Case Study : PDSA
Veterinary charity PDSA (formerly the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals), provides 1.2 million free treatments a year for the pets of low-income families. The charity has about 200 vehicles, including 70 light commercial vans and its unique PetCheck vehicle.
The commercial vans are used mainly to transport stock for the PDSA's 181 charity shops, collecting sacks of goods from people's homes and distributing items to shops.
The remaining vehicles are business-need cars for veterinary staff and managers. Volunteers can also use their own vehicles to help the charity.
PDSA fleet manager Julie Ward says: "The insurance market has been getting tougher for a number of years, and premiums have increased." Sue Viney, a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents expert in work-related road safety, has helped the charity with its insurance for just over a year. This has involved reviewing its claims record and considering how to get the best insurance deal, which has led to a change of brokers.
Ward is very pleased with the progress. "We now get regular data from our insurance company, which means we can target any problem areas and include this in advice to drivers and in the driver training we have started," she says. "It can be very simple things, such as reversing in the vans, which can obviously be more difficult because of limited rear vision.
"It has been very useful to analyse the data from all our claims. This has helped to explain why and how our claims rose and pushed up the premiums.
The driver training has started with the van drivers, and we are planning to work our way through the fleet."
Volunteers require a different approach: "All volunteer drivers have to absolve us of liability by signing a form declaring that they have informed their own insurer that they are driving for charity and hold fully comprehensive insurance."
Ward adds: "It is early days yet, but it has been a positive and helpful experience. I hope that it will reduce our accidents and our claims, and will cut our premiums - or at least keep any increases under control."
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RoSPA is a registered charity: Registered Charity No: 207823 Patron: Her Majesty the Queen RoSPA Head Office: Edgbaston Park, 353 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B5 7ST, UK |
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