Mercia Fleet Management uses AI to cut insurance costs

Mercia Fleet Management (Mercia), the fleet management division of EV salary sacrifice specialist Fleet Evolution, has been able to cut insurance costs through the use of AI-enhanced driver profiling and accident damage assessment at a time when many insurers have been increasing premiums across the board.

As insurance premiums rise in general – one well-known comparison website says that premiums have gone up by 43% over the last 12 months – Mercia has been able to reduce insurance costs by up to 25%.

Working with London-based broker, Konsileo Commercial Insurance, and analysing the results from a client’s 1,000 strong vehicle fleet, Mercia was able to demonstrate that a number of best practice interventions were key to driving down insurance costs. 

These included driver profiling and remedial behaviour training where appropriate, spatial awareness training for those involved in car park or kerbside incidents, licence checking and vehicle risk management and assessment.

Because of the high number of electric cars involved on the fleet, Mercia also analysed the impact of EVs on accident statistics and found that they were safer than ICE equivalents with lower accident rates, and that, although EV repair costs were slightly higher per vehicle, the overall repair costs of EVs were lower due to the lower rate of incidents.

This was attributed to the high levels of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) typically found in the latest EVs, including lane departure warning, lane assist, automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, parking assistance and blind spot monitoring.

Head of Mercia Fleet Management and founder of Fleet Evolution, Andrew Leech, said: “We worked with Konsileo and adopted an innovative approach, looking at the analysis cost-by-cost, to identify the interventions that were most likely to impact on the accident levels and repair costs on the fleet.

“High on the list of best practice interventions was AI-enhanced driver profiling using a traffic light and points-based system to identify the most at-risk drivers and to implement remedial training where appropriate.

“The carefully selected interventions across the fleet led to us securing a 25% reduction in insurance premiums – at a time when insurance costs generally are on the increase.”