New pay monthly duty-of-care product offered by GE Capital

GE Capital’s Fleet Services division has introduced an enhancement to its Safe Solutions risk management product through the development of a monthly, fixed cost payment model.

It has been introduced in response to customer requests for their duty of care expenditure to be broken down into a monthly charge instead of having to pay the amount at the point of use, said Gary Killeen (pictured), Fleet Services commercial leader for GE Capital UK.

He said: "What our customers have asked for is essentially a duty of care solution that fits in with the whole life cost calculation that they make when they acquire a vehicle. Achieving a compliant legal and safety framework for drivers creates an unavoidable fleet cost for employers, so this makes a lot of sense.

"There are many products available for fleet ‘duty of care’ but they tend to be based on a variable cost model. So, for example, if you have 30 drivers that need one-to-one training, the cost suddenly spikes. The new Safe Solutions model smooths the expenditure by adopting a monthly payment model."

Safe Solutions works by evaluating the ‘duty of care’ needs of each fleet, looking at the current levels of provision, identifying any areas where compliance can be improved, producing a programme of assessment and training for drivers and then following up with an on-going process of monitoring and review.

Killeen added: “This new method of paying for ‘duty of care’ services will allow for a high degree of budget smoothing, something that we believe will have appeal to both fleets that already have sophisticated ‘duty of care’ programmes in place, as well as those who would like to adopt a comprehensive fleet safety policy but have encountered problems ‘selling’ the idea internally because of the implications that come with unpredictable expenditure.”

He said ‘pay monthly’ Safe Solutions can be applied not only to the standard company car and van fleet but also to grey fleet vehicles, that fall outside of direct employer control.

"How to manage duty of care for grey fleets is an area of growing concern for many employers and being able to implement a ‘pay monthly’ solution has obvious advantages,” he added.