RoSPA Press Office : Press Release
September 20, 2002
RoSPA CHALLENGE TO FLEET INSURERS
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is calling for all motor insurance companies to review the systems which fleet operators have for managing occupational road risk (MORR™) before setting premiums.
RoSPA is staging two new seminars on MORR™ following overwhelming demand from the fleet industry for more information. One of the key themes will be the cost of insurance and the drain that crashes can make on company finances.
The seminars, sponsored by BT, will be at Kents Hill Park Conference Centre, Milton Keynes on December 2, 2002, and Beardmore Conference Hotel, Clydebank on January 22, 2003. They will build on the two sell-out seminars RoSPA staged earlier in the year.
Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser, said: “The opportunity to secure major savings in future fleet insurance premiums will be one of the main items under discussion.
“Fleet managers and health and safety advisers must establish the number of employees having accidents in company cars, vans and lorries and communicate the costs of those crashes to senior management.
“In that way, employers might begin to realise that accidents while driving for work are the biggest occupational safety problem and that being on the road for work is more risky than employment in some of Britain’s high hazard industries such as quarrying and construction. Besides failing to protect employees, failure to adopt a systematic risk management approach to MORR™ is literally pouring money down the drain.
“It’s not just a question of introducing one-off safety gimmicks, occupational road risk needs to be managed in the same way as other health and safety issues. There is a need for real analysis to establish the measures needed to tackle priority risks and to monitor safety performance.
“We want to see motor insurers reviewing the MORR™ systems which companies and other organisations have in place. Companies which cannot show a pro-active approach to this issue are likely to be faced with much higher premiums.”
RoSPA is writing to the Association of British Insurers asking it to urge its members to review their clients’ MORR™ procedures.
Seminar speakers include: Ron Munro of Zurich Insurance on the insurer’s perspective of reducing risk; Sue Viney, a chartered insurer of BHI Solutions, on measuring performance to manage risk and cost; David Faithful of Amery Parkes Solicitors on criminal and civil liabilities; and David Matthews of Tracker Network (UK) on “black box” technology. More information: 0121 248 2120 and www.rospa.com/morr
