Over the past 7 years or so we have seen an ever growing need for CCTV in HGV’s, there are several reasons for this, the obvious and most talked about is to help counter spurious personal injury claims (crash for cash) but there are other factors that should also not be over looked that has benefited both you and the insurer.
From the insurers perspective
- Early notification of claims
- Instant decision on liability
- Claims costs can be reduced up to 30%
- Changing driver habits
- Normally a reduction in the frequency of claims during the year
From your perspective
- A discount applied to the premium once the cameras are installed (dependant on the insurer)
- Improved claims costs
- Reduced claims frequency
- Less time spent dealing with liability disputes
- Annual savings on renewals
So are the benefits real?
Yes 100%, we have seen it case on case. But, you must be careful on what system you use for this, we do not recommend an SD Card system, (where the incident video is stored on a small card in the camera) technology has moved on a great deal since these initial camera systems were offered to the market. Camera solutions available today are now able to email the incident video within minutes of it occurring and not only to you but also to us the insurance broker. This is invaluable as the video can not be deleted or corrupted along with ourselves liaising with the insurer quickly to establish liability.
We strongly recommend any haulier regardless of the amount of HGV’s they are running to have these camera solutions installed. Unfortunately in most cases its not until things have taken a turn for the worse and a substantial rate increase has been applied that hauliers are advised to install CCTV. Don’t wait until its to late.