Motor Fleet Insurance for Australian Fleet Operators

Motor fleet insurance covers multiple vehicles under one policy and one schedule, rather than a separate policy for every vehicle.

In broker language, motor fleet usually refers to light vehicles such as utes, vans and cars, with insurers commonly treating around sixteen units and above as a fleet. At that point the schedule can often be rated on a unit rate instead of a percentage of each vehicle's value.

Heavy transport equipment is generally written as a transport fleet, which is a different policy again. You will also see motor fleet insurance called vehicle fleet insurance or company fleet insurance, which describe the same arrangement.

Truck insurance normally refers to cover arranged for individual trucks, often alongside liability in a transport package, which is where most one-person operations with a prime mover and a trailer sit.

Motor fleet insurance covers a schedule of vehicles under a single policy. As a fleet grows, moving from individual policies to a fleet schedule usually becomes the more workable arrangement, though there is no fixed point where that has to happen.

For light vehicle motor fleets, insurers commonly use around sixteen units as the point where a fleet arrangement is available.

For transport fleets the practical starting point tends to be closer to ten items, but there is no clean number and it depends on the insurer, the mix of equipment and how the business runs.

Smaller operators are often better served by a transport package until the schedule grows.

Heavy motor is the insurance industry's term for cover on heavy commercial vehicles: prime movers, rigids, trailers and the equipment towed behind them, as opposed to light commercial vehicles. A heavy motor schedule with enough units on it is what most operators mean when they ask about transport fleet insurance.

The starting point is the asset register and the total sum insured, and whether cover is on an agreed or market value basis.

From there: what the fleet carries, the age and maintenance of the equipment, where it is garaged and how secure the yard is, the operating area and radius, and your claims history.

The credibility of the director and the business over time also carries real weight. How many powered units you run matters more than the total item count, because that is what is actually on the road.

It depends entirely on the shape of the claims.

If the pattern is lots of small losses, around eight or twelve thousand each, the fleet can often be re-quoted with a higher excess of ten or twenty thousand.

That means you pay those smaller claims yourself instead of the insurer, which usually brings the premium down. If the pattern is two or three total losses or rollovers, a higher excess will not fix it.

That needs investigation into the cause, controls put in place, and evidence of the fix shown to the underwriter. Either way, the insurer wants to see that you have dealt with the pattern.

Agreed value is usually what we recommend, as long as a valuation backs it up. Most owners want to be paid what they believe the truck is worth, not what a market assessment says after the loss.

The valuation has to be done properly, and with prices moving the way they have, the gap between the two is wider than it used to be.

Some fleet policies carry automatic cover for newly acquired equipment for thirty or sixty days, but it depends on the wording and it is not universal.

Outside that window an unlisted item may not be covered at all. A total loss on an unlisted prime mover and trailer can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the argument that follows means proving the purchase date and the value from your own records. Telling your broker at the time of purchase is the whole fix.

In most cases yes. Transport fleets commonly carry a few light vehicles, a forklift or a piece of plant alongside the trucks and trailers, and that mix is normal. Most of the schedule generally needs to be trucks and trailers for insurers to treat it as a transport fleet rather than a commercial motor fleet.

Yes, and it is one of the areas most often left loose.

Obligations tend to pass down the chain: your contracts with big clients (tier one or tier two) put terms on you, and your contracts with your subbies should pass the same terms on to them. Put those agreements in writing. Handshake deals are still common in transport, and when something goes wrong the obligation stays with whoever cannot prove otherwise.

Typically: what you transport and what work you do, your equipment count and powered unit count with types and values, and your turnover and employee numbers now and over the past five years.

Then your contracts and tenders in place or coming, depots and who holds chain of responsibility, your safety systems, driver onboarding and offboarding, where maintenance is done, and your claims history.

Your largest single revenue project and your subcontractor arrangements matter too.

On a fleet of forty to fifty items, around twelve weeks before expiry, with your information back to the broker between eight and six weeks out. That gives us time to take your fleet to several insurers rather than accept the first terms offered.