In the case of accidents involving fleet vehicles, common expenses, such as repairs and the excess of insurance sums, are like a grain of sand in the desert. A good lawyer can help assess and calculate the damages for injury compensation purposes. You can find a good personal injury attorney after a car accident in Orlando, FL, to help you in the whole process.
Repair expenses and deductibles are not difficult to plan. The amounts are relatively known, and you should consider them in your budget. However, below the surface lurks a huge iceberg of hidden costs just waiting to mess up the budgeting and planning of your business.
Cost Calculation for an Accident Involving Vehicles in Your Fleet Business
Multiple things can determine the costs you incur after a car accident. So what are the hidden costs of fleet accidents that your company can face?
The Hidden Costs of Accidents in a Fleet
The worst thing that can happen in a road crash is someone losing their precious life. These are the extreme potential costs of a mishap at work or otherwise. Fortunately, most accidents do not end in fatalities. But that doesn’t mean they can’t financially ruin your business.
Legal Costs
Although your insurance policy may cover most (or even all) of the legal costs, there are often cases where you will first have to pay them yourself, and then, depending on the outcome of the case, the insurance company will pay for them.
Even if your insurance covers attorney and court costs regardless of fault, your company will likely have to advance costs that you won’t recover until the case is closed. You need a financial buffer for this.
Depressed Mood in the Team
Look at it as a psychological cost at first, which often becomes a monetary cost later.
Post-accident support is necessary. Not just driver retraining, but preventative measures against depression or stress. Regardless of whether your driver was at fault, he (or she) can suffer greatly from the accident, and it can affect your entire business. An accident is a traumatic happening that affects everyone in the business, especially everyone who deals with that driver directly. If you factor in how many individuals that can be, it can run into thousands.
Negative Publicity
Being in the news isn’t always a good thing. Especially in the digital age, your brand may appear in the news feeds of countless people before you understand what is happening.
This comes at a cost because your marketing and PR team (or an agency if you don’t have one) has to step in and spend a lot of time reaching out to clients and the public.
Administrative Burden
While technology is doing a lot to reduce the overall fleet management effort, fleet managers still handle incidents manually. That’s a lot of effort. Especially since a good number of managers use their precious time on administrative tasks.
Fleet accidents, therefore, increase the burden on managers. It can also result in increased workload for people who don’t manage drivers directly depending on the severity of the accident.
Decreased Value of Vehicle
Even if a car is kept in the best state after an accident, it will lose value, even if your driver did not cause the crash. In certain countries, you can claim this from the insurance company, but this is not always successful, and in some cases, the courts will even frown upon it if you cannot provide a solid reason for it. In addition to the accident costs, there is also depreciation in the event of a later sale.
Lost Working Time
Regardless of whether a driver is injured, they will likely be off work for some time. Depending on the employment contract, you must continue to pay wages. It also leaves a gap in your duty list that needs to be filled by other drivers (which hurts team spirit) or a short-term replacement that takes time and money to find.
Lost Orders
There can be many reasons for lost orders. One of them is negative publicity; from a photo shared online or to a feature in a major newspaper.
You can quickly lose contracts because you don’t have enough workers left to complete them. Or the administrative burden can consume so much time that you and your team don’t have time to concentrate on the actual business. With proper legal follow-up, you can come up with a proper estimate and secure compensation quickly. Look for the right car accident lawyer to help you.
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