Imagine the scenario: It's late afternoon, an order to trunk 25 tonnes from the warehouse comes in and as transport manager you have a rig available, but only a new driver who is qualified, but not yet assessed.

Decision time! Do you sub out the load or take the risk on the new man?

The key element is of course, ‘taking the risk' and that's a predominant thought when running a road haulage business these days.

Between Duty of Care, the arrival of the digital tachograph and with drivers' CPCs on the horizon, the risk parameters are being reduced thanks to much more intel on trucks, but more particularly on drivers, being available mainly generated for the haulier by its insurance company.

So what is state-of-the-art in underwriting a CV fleet these days? Best to ask the top team voted by brokers for the fourth consecutive year as the best insurance company in Britain. That's Norwich Union and recently in their Glasgow offices regional account underwriter Richard Daubney, risk manager (motor) Bill Pownall and fleet risk advisor Frank McAvoy were keen to illustrate how Norwich Union's risk management support for policy holders is backed up by the company's dedicated team of fleet risk consultants and via the N-U risk management websites appropriately labelled www.nu-riskservices.co.uk and specific fleet website www.norwichunion.com/roadsense.

“Underwriting these days is all about reacting to a plethora of information,” revealed Richard Daubney. “In the first instance we ask the potential customer to complete our motor fleet fact finder aimed at the road haulage division and this comprehensive six page questionnaire soon reveals the grey areas of younger drivers, high accident claims and just exactly which risk management protocols are already in place with the company.”

“This gives us a basis on which to quote and if successful we would then be looking at continuous updates of information supplied by the customer.”

Frank McAvoy reckons the new digital tachographs offer up a lot of fleet indicators which helps provide details for Norwich Union's Fleetwise Care programme that can also include a telematics package installed as a Duty of Care tool in 50% of the vehicles in any fleet with a minimum of 25 vehicles involved.

“Its purpose is to monitor the driver and in this case it's more of a black box technology, not linked to the tachograph. Nor is it a spy in the cab, in fact it is a driver's friend that can illustrate the exact number of hours driven for his own protection.

“Fleetwise Care is a proposition under the basic Fleetwise policy. Among others there is Risk Management and Roadsense, all part of the Norwich Union package if their insurance quotation is accepted.”

Bill Pownall insists, “You don't just buy a certificate of insurance from Norwich Union, you buy into a complete support network.

“Commercial vehicle insurance always comes through a broker and more often than not the broker sits in on a Norwich Union advice session where fleet staff give common sense pointers for which on many occasions no charge is made,” and insists Bill, “nor does it cost the policy holder money to put our advice in place unless essential and immediate driver training is involved.

“At the end of the day, we're trying to assist compliance by road haulage operators and particularly for those companies which have grown from an owner operator to a medium size fleet where in previous years the focus has been purely on growth, but we now have to raise awareness of a variety of conformity problems.”

Frank McAvoy, as fleet risk advisor, reckons his job is to make the risk better and if Norwich Union enhance these conformity procedures this will have the added benefit to the customer of ensuring 24 hour usage of his vehicles.

“All O-Licence holders should call us in. They have really nothing to lose and everything to gain. Last year for instance we majored on a ‘vetting and induction' campaign for new drivers and we found that when hauliers got this right all else fell neatly into place.

“Then there is Health and Safety cover and recent trends have thrown up higher incidences of drivers falling from vehicles. which became a big claim on Employers Liability.”

So apparently, insurance these days is all down to risk assessment and all Norwich Union assessors are Health and Safety trained under the NEBOSH scene (National Examination Board for Occupational Safety and Health).

“With a staff of 19 in total, Norwich Union has the largest team of fleet risk advisors in the UK”, reveals Richard Daubney. “And we are the biggest CV insurers in the United Kingdom, covering 32,000 fleets which constitutes over 500,000 vehicles. Also, we have a number of sister companies such as RAC and BSM who, like Norwich Union, trade under the Aviva Group banner. Interestingly, before their purchase RAC was Norwich Union's driver training provider and this still is the case where essential driver training can cost £150 per day on a one to one basis.”

“Another new trend which is proving popular with hauliers in Scotland is our task observer scheme which encourages transport managers to put their own driver assessment scheme in place to a consistent standard. Norwich Union offers a two day course which can be offered at subsidised rates for policy holders but the benefits are immense. For instance, Duty of Care rules now insist that if the company's vehicle has an accident, the authorities will require evidence of continuous assessment of the driver.

“All new drivers have to be proved competent in what they say they can do. This of course will be helped in the not to distant future when drivers themselves will require to hold a Certificate of Professional Competence.”

Both Frank McAvoy who used to work at A&D Logistics based in Renfrew and Bill Pownall who was employed by a leading truck and trailer rental company can easily identify with the O-Licence holder.

Jointly they insist that they would ‘rather work with policy holders who are risk management focused. It's the difference between what the client tells us, to what telematic and logistic information gives us. Because although Norwich Union has made the headlines with our ‘pay as you drive' insurance policy initiative, it could be argued that in the future as far as commercial vehicles are concerned, it could be ‘pay how you drive' as fleet safety initiatives are presented to encourage safer driving.'

“New telematic systems differ from previous information supply offering location, speed and time of day only, by their ability to record and build up a profile on driver behaviour such as rapid acceleration and harsh braking, overall mileage and speed, and infringements of the European Working Time Directive related to drivers' hours.

“This information which is automatically captured for analysis allows insurers and fleet managers to assess driving performance and suggest modification if needed via bespoke driver training.

“In the long term, this can lead to reduced accident costs and claims as well as the policy excess being reduced, all of which is quite a consideration when truck insurance premiums can cost out at £2,500 per vehicle per year.

“When visiting a haulier we identify short-falls and give them the solutions, most of which are listed on our website and this discussion is usually held with their brokers present, for we are finding that whereas brokers may be finding little profit margin in transacting individual private motor insurance policies, road haulage operators provide a huge market and for many brokers they constitute a significant part of their annual business,” says regional account underwriter Richard Daubney.

“As a customer, operators can sign up to receive Netrisk, our weekly bulletin sent by email covering the latest advice on a host of areas where Norwich Union insurance products and risk management advice is available.

“This is just another added value and a benefit in the long term to maintain a relationship with the same insurance company when a continual flow of information from year to year allows Norwich Union to construct a five year rating system on operators which often positively affect their premiums.”