What is fleet accident management?
It is the single process that runs from the moment one of your drivers has an incident to the moment the vehicle is back in service and the costs are recovered. In practice that covers first notification, recovery, repair management, a replacement vehicle, and the claim itself. Done properly the operator makes one call and hears back with a plan, rather than chasing four suppliers.
What it is not
It is not simply a rental account. A rental desk supplies a vehicle if one happens to be free and invoices you for it. Accident management is judged on downtime and on whether the non-fault costs are recovered rather than absorbed by the fleet.
What to ask before appointing a provider
- What is your average delivery time, and is it measured from notification or from allocation?
- What proportion of requests do you fulfil from your own fleet?
- Do we get a named handler, or a shared queue?
- Do you hold the vehicle classes we actually run, including plated, refrigerated and tail lift?
- How do you handle fault and disputed incidents, not just clean non-fault ones?
- What reporting do we get, and how often?
The first two questions are the ones most providers answer vaguely. Ours are published below and reviewed every six months.
Our published numbers
Average time from notification of claim to a replacement vehicle being delivered: 6 hours, measured across the six months to September 2026. Vehicle availability rate: 85% of requests were fulfilled from our own fleet, measured across the six months to September 2026. Delivery time is measured from notification of claim rather than from the point a vehicle is allocated, because the gap between those two moments is exactly where fleet downtime hides.
How we work with fleets
One named handler owns the case from the first call to settlement. Notification routes are agreed in advance, so your drivers know the number and your transport team is not triaging incidents. Non-fault hire runs on credit hire and is recovered from the at-fault insurer. Fault and disputed incidents run on direct hire at agreed rates, so there is one route for every incident.
The operational detail sits on fleet hire, first notification on FNOL, and commercial replacements on commercial vehicle replacement after an accident.
Brokers, insurers and partners
If you are placing work rather than running the fleet yourself, see partner with PurpleSquare Hire and white-label claims. If you are comparing providers more generally, how to choose a credit hire company sets out the same questions from a claimant's point of view.
Talk to us
Tell us the size of the fleet, the vehicle classes you run and where they operate, and we will tell you plainly what we can cover and how quickly. Get in touch or call 01606 662300.