insureFLEET pick up their Business of the Year award 2012

The third annual East Cheshire Chamber of Commerce Business Awards were held at Cranage Hall on Friday 30^th March 2012.

On a highly successful night 13 prestigious awards were presented (from over 160 entries) to East Cheshire businesses in recognition of their outstanding achievements and commitment to excellence over the past year. There were 16 tables and 160 people at the awards, showing there are plenty of thriving businesses in the region despite the tough economic climate.

County Insurance Consultants Ltd (www.countyins.com), employing 75 staff and with offices in Crewe and Southport, were one of several nominations in the hard fought and prestigious Business of the Year Award.

County Insurance are both delighted and honoured to have come out as the winners for 2012 as the East Cheshire Chamber Business of the Year. This is following on from having won Professional Service Provider of the Year in 2011.

Dave Clapp, MD of County Insurance comments “We are delighted to have won the Business of the Year award against what was some very stiff competition. I know a lot of the other companies that were in our category whom I have great respect for, and I am really chuffed to have been chosen by the panel as winners of Business of the Year.”

Dave continues, “I’d like to publicly thank our staff who are all very dedicated professionals and you don’t win awards like this without having an excellent team of people. We have had nearly eight years of sustained but controlled growth, even in the last few years in recessionary trading conditions which is really pleasing.

The high levels of customer service we provide both our personal and business customers’ means that not only do we enjoy high levels of customer loyalty, but also benefit from word of mouth recommendations.

Customers obviously hope that they never really need their insurance – but it’s vital to provide a superb service when they do, with the foundations of us winning the award of professional service provider last year we went on to have our best year ever in terms of business results so it just shows that the professional service delivered to your customers really does pay.

“We find that providing a first class service on top of competitive pricing is a sound business strategy. In the last few years I believe we have seen a ‘flight to quality’ for important services such as insurance. You need good advice. There is little point in having an insurance policy if it doesn’t cover you for what you believed it should do, which is the danger with internet only companies in this sector

We make sure all staff are fully trained and put many through the professional insurance qualifications. They really do go the extra mile to make sure our customers get the best service and I’m delighted this award recognises this.

My thanks go to our team, all the people that nominated us and to the panel of the East Cheshire Chamber for this award”

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County Insurance Consultants are a one stop shop insurance broker based in Cheshire. We offer the full range of personal insurance and business insurance. For online car & home quotes visit www.insurance4your.co.uk.

insureFLEET is the fleet insurance brand of the business and provides insurance solutions for 3+ vehicles. It is part of the Commercial Insurance department.

For business insurance, visit www.countyins.com. Alternatively call 01270 506980 to speak to one of our team

According to the AA’s British insurance premiere index, the comprehensive insurance has gone up by 40% in a year.

The action fleet however can take control of the cost.

Two factors to control premiere

1. History of claim
2. Putting together a convincing package

9 tips top from the insurance sector to keep your premiums low:

1. Risk Management – look over you history of claims analyse them and bring out and highlight the areas that need to be improved
2. Driver Training – insurance companies do offer these but not all do usually those programs are thorough partners, usually they lead to discount in insurance which not all companies accept but to have an improved claims record should be surely recognised.
3. Manage young drivers – young drivers between 17-20 are more likely to have been involved in an accident and “10 times more likely to involve severe bodily injury” Mike Smith claims he is a commercial motor technical manager at Aviva, then any other advance driver, therefore the cost of claims in three times higher.
4. Combine Insurance – it’s a fusion of insurance; to be part of the tower gate group, offer you a public liability, the employee liability and the fleet insurance.
5. Use Camera technology – using cameras can be useful for using data by claims and swiftly settling at-fault claim, they effective for finding out for any fraudulent claims as they cost the industry up to £350 million per year.
6. Renew policy in good time and after proper review – you should not pay for cover that are unnecessary for you such as a windscreen cover4 as they can be replaced easily.
7. Self-insure – make sure you the driver are insured as well.
8. Provide good vehicle security – in the commercial group they pay lower premium because they have a hidden tracker in their van so in the case of a stolen vehicle they can track it.
9. Telematics – it might be less appealing for vans but it surely is appealing for health and safety!

5 Tips to take the action to reduce the insurance claims cost!

1. Claim fast (part one) – mike from the commercial motor technical manager at Aviva said that every year the bodily injury increase by 30% on average, in these case every minute counts. Clients prefer to have doctor or rehab arrangement where the cost can be controlled.
2. Claim fast (part two) – not all incidence have a injuries cases, they might have damaged a vehicle that can be charged back to you insures, so its important to claim as quick , so you can have control over you charges.
3. Claim fast (part three) – new rules demand 15 days to gather all the information leading to the fast.
4. Be honest and encourage drivers to be honest – if it’s your fault, don’t argue and take it down the long road as you eventually lose it and the cost will be much higher at the end.
5. Tracking can help with this speed as well as duty of care – if a van that has a tracking system is in an accident, the company can be their before the police arrives.

Would you like more advice on your business fleet or company car insurance?  Call us on 0800 980 3141 or get an online fleet insurance quote.

This month, we had a customer contact us who had never had a fleet insurance policy.

Three of her business vehicles were due for renewal within a few weeks of each other – one premium had risen by 22%, one by 34% and the other by 17% – and the business had no claims that year!!

We shopped our panel of fleet insurance underwriters and returned with a rate for all vehicles that reduced their combined premiums by over £1600 (7 vehicles total).

Fleet insurance premiums are currently much more cost effective than individual vehicle policies so if you haven’t yet moved to fleet insurance, call us on 0800 142 2810 or leave your details on our fleet insurance quote form

insureFLEET staff all came to work on Friday dressed in a nautical theme, and donated money for “dressing down” towards the RNLI. There was also lots of hard work done in the baking department, and staff donated money to eat the delicious cakes all day. On top of that there were RNLI quizes and a “lucky dip” where you picked an RNLI station of your choice somewhere in the UK, and a lucky winner was drawn from a hat.

The fleet insurance crew raised over £300 for the RNLI which is more than enough to kit a full time volunteer out with every piece of equipment he or she would need when going to sea.

Well done to everyone at insureFLEET and we’ll be doing the same next year!

John and Louise from the fleet insurance team - all dressed up for sea!

Assuming no claims were made (or a reasonable amount of claims depending on fleet size), fleet insurance premiums have remained flat in the last 12 months and in some cases we have seen small reductions.

Compare this against single vehicle polices, whether these are private cars, business cars or commercial vehicles such as vans. Single vehicle insurance – private or business use - continues to rise with premiums going up anywhere between 10-30%. Even if you have been claim free this year. We don’t see this trend stopping in the next 12 months either.

Fleet insurance policies – starting from 3 vehicles – are remaining static price wise and there are good reasons for this. These can be summarised as:

1. Fleet insurance underwriters can build a clear picture up of the combination of vehicles and drivers
2. They get to know more about the business, so understand the risk better. This is a big positive.
3. A business owner who takes a fleet insurance policy could be considered a lower risk as they are forward thinking, well organised and might have some fleet management policies in place to reduce accidents

So if you have had a fleet insurance quote before but didn’t get around to migrating to a fleet policy, the next few months represents a great opportunity and financial incentive for your business to do so.

1. Single vehicle insurance premiums are rising steeply. Fleet insurance isn’t. Thus you’ll save money on each vehicle. This can represent a significant saving when you add this across all vehicles.
2. It offers you more flexible business driving for your company – efficiency increases margins.
3. It saves the  business owner (or whoever is responsible for the policies) valuable time rather than dealing with a number of individual policies. Imagine renewing all of your vehicles in one go, or swapping vehicles on a policy with one point of contact….

Fleet insurance policies start at 3 vehicles, and any type of vehicle can be considered. Most of our clients have a combination of cars and vans, with some having more specialist vehicles such as HGV’s and Tippers.

Please call our fleet insurance specialist team on 0800 142 2820 or visit our fleet insurance quote page to submit your details and we’ll call you back with a quote.

The insureFLEET Team wish you a Happy New Year!

insureFLEET would like to wish all of our valued business fleet insurance customers a Happy New Year!

We wish you all the best for a successful 2012!

Remember, we’re here if you need us! Call us on 0800 980 3141 with any fleet insurance queries or click here for a fleet insurance quote.

We're now open 8am-10pm Mon-Fri and 9am-5pm Sat & Sun

We also offer breakdown assistance from just £39 a year!

Jan Evans outside County Insurance's Head Office in Crewe, Cheshire

Proud insureFLEET would like to say a big “Well Done!” to fleet insurance advisor, Jan Evans for completing the Snowdonia Marathon on 29^th October 2011!

Jan works in the insureFLEET, company car and business fleet insurance department within County Insurance.  In the daytime Jan offers the cheapest company car insurance and fleet insurance to businesses and in her spare time trains for marathons!

The Snowdonia Marathon, her most recent and greatest challenge to date, was 26.2 miles around Snowdon and involved a 1200ft climb and then decent.

Jan and friend Neil crossing the line!

“Around 5 years ago I lost my Dad to prostate cancer (the most common form of cancer in men) so I wanted to run the marathon to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Charity”.  I have raised nearly £1,000 so I’m really pleased!”

Jason Mullenny, insureFLEET’s Fleet Insurance Department Manager, commented “All of the fleet insurance team were pleased to support and sponsor Jan and we were absolutely delighted to hear that she had achieved her goal!”

Do you need fleet insurance?  Call one of our experienced fleet insurance team (including Jan!) on 0800 980 3141 or click here for a fleet insurance quote.

THIS WEEK has been very exciting for insureFLEET (providers of great value fleet insurance)!  ITV and The BBC came to our head office in Crewe to film news stories!

Insurance4your, our car and home insurance department are proud sponsors of Nantwich Town Football Club (Evo Stick Premier League) who are impressively through to the first round of the FA Cup!!  One of their top players, Mat Bailey, also works for County Insurance‘s insureFLEET, (business fleet and company car insurance department) as a fleet insurance advisor.

In the build up to NTFC’s big game against MK Dons on Saturday (12^th November), ITV and The BBC were interested to know how Mat balances his career at County Insurance and being a professional footballer. 

Mat has taken the sensible decision to plan for his life after football by starting to work for County Insurance as an insurance advisor.  It’s his first ever job.

“It’s been a big change for me but one that I’m really enjoying” says Mat. “Adapting to life in an office after being a full-time professional footballer has been an eye opener but the team at County Insurance are genuinely brilliant and it’s been much easier than I expected!”

“I’m really enjoying it and for me it’s the best of both worlds at the moment.  I am learning an important and long lasting skill being a fleet insurance advisor and hope to complete my Cert CII qualifications.  It’s a varied role and quite fast-paced.  It’s great to get customers the best deal on their company car insurance and business fleet insurance.  At the same time I am still a semi-professional footballer, playing for a great club like Nantwich who have a strong team and experienced manager in Jimmy Quinn”

Mat scored one of the goals and was also “Man of the Match” in the game that put NTFC through to the FA Cup first round in their 3-2 victory over Northwich Victoria last week.

County Insurance’s Tim Crighton (Director) comments “We are very proud of Mat and the team’s achievement!  We’re looking forward to travelling down to Milton Keynes to watch them play this important match.” 

Tim continues with saying “Mat has done a great job for us, so we’re pleased to support him in his sporting career.  As he’s played at a top level, he’s completely used to the importance of teamwork; you can certainly see this in the office environment.  He has integrated into the team perfectly, has an upbeat personality and brings a winning mentality to his role within County Insurance.   He is very bright, which has probably aided his sporting development too.”

So what would happen if a bigger sporting opportunity came along? “We would support Mat 100% if he had the opportunity to play at the highest level.  He would leave with our best wishes and we’d keep the door open for him if he ever wanted to return.  We admire him as he is doing the sensible thing in building a career in a respected industry for after his football days.  However, if he gets an opportunity to climb the sporting ladder even further, we’d be delighted for him”.

The story will be aired at 6pm on Friday (11^th November) on ITV Granada and 6.30pm on BBC Northwest.

Need fleet insurance, company car insurance or commercial vehicle insurance?  Call us on 0800 980 3141 and speak to our expert fleet insurance team, which includes Mat!  Alternatively, complete an online fleet insurance quote form.