Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine March 2022

S tate, National, Chapter News State national Chapter News

Insurance Risk Transfer

Nick Hall Cross Pointe Insurance Advisors In Partnership with Arkansas HVACR Association

I hope you all have had a great start to 2022! It is no secret that Auto Insurance Rates have been increasing in recent years. There are several factors behind these increases from higher claims costs to more distracted drivers, but the fact is rates are increasing and we don’t see that changing very soon. We want you to reduce those insurance costs as much as possible, and the best to do that is to eliminate or decrease your number of accidents. Anytime you have a vehicle over the road, there is the risk of an accident. Nothing you can do can eliminate that entirely, but there are several things you can do to mitigate that risk. Having the right people behind the wheel is one of the most significant. A driver’s past driving record is one of the best indications of their future driving performance. Statistics show that drivers with two or more accidents or violations in a three-year period are 2.5 times more likely to have an accident

than a driver with a clean driving record.

With that in mind, establishing clear Driver Guidelines and pulling each drive r’s Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) is a key element for any business to decrease their risk of an accident. Driver Guidelines can (and should) vary from industry to industry, company to company, and even employee types within an organization, but the elements of each should be fairly consistent. Those include requirements such as a valid driver’s license, age and experience requirements, and Driving History Standards. Driving History Standards can also look very different, two of my favorite ways to structure these standards are: • Creating a Point System where each violation is valued with different points based on severity, and each driver with a total sum of points at or above a set number is not allowed to drive or not hired. • Splitting Violation Types into Categories and allowing a certain number of violations in each category or zero in the most severe category.