When Medina - one of the UK's largest suppliers of milk, dairy and bakery products - commissioned a systematic review of its fleet insurance policies, depots and associated risk management approaches, it uncovered surprising and compelling commercial incentives to make changes.
Responsible for delivering over 400 products on a just-in-time basis for 5,000 locations nationwide, Medina's fleet and risk managers were looking for expert help to improve fleet productivity and reduce operating costs.
Investigations by RSA's fleet team, appointed by Medina and brokers Willis Towers Watson in 2015, uncovered more than 10 fleet insurance policies - each with different insurers and renewal dates. This, along with inconsistent approaches to risk management across recently acquired fleets and depots, was preventing clear visibility of overall fleet performance, meaning opportunities to reduce cost were missed.
As well as working with Medina to bring all its fleet risks under one policy, RSA's fleet team maintained a rigorous focus on risk management by establishing quarterly risk review meetings and helping design training for depot managers (delivered by WTW) that covered legal aspects of fleet management, the hidden costs of accidents, accident investigation best practice and the importance of data quality in claims defensibility.
In 2017, RSA's fleet team also identified further opportunities for performance improvement after studying data from an in-vehicle CCTV trial (using DriverMetrics®, a web-driven behavioural driver safety programme) and driver assessment programme.
Taking a collaborative approach to risk management has seen Medina's claims frequency plummet from 46% in 2015 to around 20% in 2017. A large number of 'nil' claims are also now reported, enabling a proactive approach to handling any third-party incidents.