Dashcam Benefits for Commercial Fleets

Plexus Law Study: Monetary Impacts of Implementing Dashcams

Recent data shows the frequency of collisions where commercial vehicle drivers are at fault is significantly lower than we might have thought. A new study by Plexus Law reveals a common factor separating drivers with heavy claims costs and those with smaller, reduced premiums: connected dash cameras.

Key Findings

Commercial vehicles equipped with connected dash cams saw:

Methodology

Plexus Law, a U.K.-based law firm specializing in insurance litigation, is a strong believer in video evidence for their clients. They recently teamed up with SureCam to conduct a study examining data for 4,000 vehicles belonging to a client's home-delivery fleet, encompassing more than 5,500 claims. The December 2018 study compares the claims data between the vehicles that were equipped with SureCam dash cameras and those that were not.

Results

Connected Dash Cameras Cut Total Claims Costs by More Than Half

The comparison study showed that, between the most prominent data points, the average claims cost was more than twice as high for vehicles without cameras, compared to vehicles equipped with cameras. With an average 61.63% savings for the fleet, the results demonstrate a high-level return on investment for product installation.

Plexus Law breaks down their findings to reveal where the largest differences in claims costs happen by incident type, and overall.

Hit-by-Third-Party Claim Costs Shrank by 55%

When a commercial vehicle is struck by a third party (TP), the professional driver is often presumed to be at fault, leading to frustrating and costly consequences for the driver and the company. Plexus Law's study demonstrates that having video of the incident from a connected dash cam was helpful in clarifying important details, resulting in a 55.14% percent overall drop in all claims payouts of this type. Impressively, claims costs were 72 percent lower for camera equipped fleet vehicles hit by third parties while stationary; in addition, 60 percent of claims were successfully dismissed in those cases, compared to just 35 percent for trucks without a camera. When the fleet vehicle was hit by a third party from behind, costs ended up about 42 percent less.

A Dramatic Drop in Pedestrian Incident Costs

Hitting a pedestrian is the very last thing anyone wants, yet it can happen in the blink of an eye. But not all vehicle-versus-pedestrian incidents were created equal, this study showed.

The percentage of claims successfully dismissed remained the same, but dash camera-equipped vehicles saw an astonishing 80 percent reduction in claim costs.

Lower Payouts for Most Common Incidents

Avoid backing up and allow adequate braking distance. Every commercial driver knows these basic safety rules, yet they remain some of the most common causes of accidents. When examining accident particulars such as these, however, the Plexus Law study found that when vehicles were outfitted with dash cams, claims costs ultimately were lower for nearly all incident types — even when the fleet vehicle was shown to have struck a third party. Costs dropped by over a third for collisions with cyclists, and by at least half for rear-end collisions and accidents with third parties when the fleet driver was in reverse.

More Claims Successfully Dismissed

If the best way to prevent insurance claims is to avoid incidents in the first place, the second best is when false claims are dismissed altogether. That was the case for camera ready fleet vehicles hit by cyclists and by third parties while stationary, as well as when a third party was changing lanes.

These five key insights illustrate a significant return on investment for connected dash cameras. Even in cases where there was little to no reduction in the volume of claims, video footage from dash cameras provided additional value for the company in the form of driver evaluation and training.