If you have a several high-value vehicles, a specialist family fleet policy is the ideal solution to cover all of your cars in one place. A family fleet policy is particularly useful if you have vehicles used by several associated people, kept across different locations.
Lockton has the expertise to arrange family fleet insurance on your behalf. Plus, our performance team can assist if you own any classic or specialist vehicles. Below, we have provided insight into why a family fleet policy is a good idea, highlighting some of the key benefits it provides.
It's important to distinguish between a family fleet policy and a commercial vehicle fleet policy – the latter is designed to cover fleets of company-owned, mostly commercial vehicles, and excludes many of the cover benefits designed for a fleet of vehicles owned by a private individual.
Benefits of a family fleet policy
Convenience
Put simply, family fleet insurance provides you with one policy, one renewal date, and one payment. This avoids the confusion that can arise from having multiple policies with different renewal dates.
Cover for multiple drivers
If you have an extended household, including staff, the ability to cover all of them across your vehicles can be useful. Naturally, higher performance or more expensive cars may come with certain limitations for younger drivers.
Flexibility
A fleet policy will allow other people who do not live with you to drive your cars, eg professional drivers, or friends staying at your home. With comprehensive cover, you won't need to make further insurance arrangements as additional drivers are covered automatically.
Comprehensive insurance also allows you to drive cars owned by others, which will help you avoid any costly accidents.
Agreed value provided
Many policies operate on a market value basis, so should anything go wrong, the valuation will be based on the car value at the point of loss. A specialist family fleet policy, on the other hand, can provide a value for your cars that is agreed upon by you. Previously seen only within classic car policies, this locks in the value at the start of the policy for the full year and is reviewed and assessed annually.
Your choice of repair services
If you are involved in an accident, the policy will allow you to have your vehicle repaired by a company of your choice, not a generic repairer approved by the insurer. There is no penalty for opting to do this.
This alleviates the problem that many people experience during the repair claim process, where clients are passed immediately to a third-party accident management provider whose primary focus might not be on the prompt and efficient repair of your vehicle. The ability to choose your repair services will also help you avoid additional costs that many third-party providers add automatically. This is a subject we will be writing more about in a separate article.
Suitable replacement vehicle
During the repair process, you will be provided with a suitable replacement vehicle, which will match your own in terms of type, size, and specification. Should a replacement be unavailable, some policies will provide a cash alternative to facilitate a car hire instead.
If the worst should happen and your vehicle is deemed a total loss following an accident or theft, your policy will cover replacements of cars that judged as new in condition. This means you will be able to replace cars that are up to two years old – the usual period being 12 months.
High-quality service
The insurers who provide this type of policy will usually back this up with a high-quality, efficient claims service, on the proviso that you will expect claims to be dealt with quickly and with minimal disruption to your life.
Broad, flexible cover at a reasonable price
Interestingly, this sort of policy is not always more expensive than using a direct insurer, some of whom offer a similar multi-car policy. Many of these direct insurer policies do not offer the breadth of benefits that a family fleet policy provides as standard.
A great example of this is our work with Paul. His family fleet included an Aston Martin, Bentley, Porsche, BMW, and a Mini. Paul, his wife, and their three children were insured with a direct insurer, and the cars were situated both at the family home and the addresses of his children.
We were able to produce a single policy, covering all vehicles at a price comparable to a direct insurer, but with the following benefits:
- Any driver over 35 cover instead of named drivers only
- Comprehensive cover for driving other cars (for Paul and his wife) instead of third party only
- Full UK & EU breakdown recovery, including repatriation and home start
- Increased legal expenses cover
- Choice of own repairer without having to pay a higher excess
- No excess in the event of a total loss claim
Paul has since added other cars to his policy, and he has also appointed Lockton to handle his household insurance. To reduce the cost and admin of personal insurance, it is a good idea to use your buying power and offer your motor insurer the opportunity to quote on your house and contents policy. We will soon be publishing an article on this topic titled: 'The power of the portfolio'.
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