Getting a quote for certain commercial fleets is already difficult. Research commissioned by managing general agent Direct Commercial Limited (DCL) found 71% of brokers cite limited market capacity as the main obstacle placing cover for waste, hazardous and recycling fleets, and more than seven in ten said a specialist channel had provided the only workable quote at least some of the time.
It's worth noting DCL commissioned this research itself and hasn't published its methodology, so the figures are best read as an industry signal rather than an independently verified benchmark.
Even with that caveat, the direction is clear: underwriters are asking these fleets to prove they manage risk, not just report a claims history.
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) data shows claims now absorb 59p of every £1 collected in motor premium before costs are even factored in, a five-point jump that leaves insurers with far less room to soak up further shocks.
Operators with a patchy claims history, high mileage, or significant EV content in their vehicle mix should expect that dynamic to surface directly in renewal negotiations through the fourth quarter of 2026 and into 2027.
Gallagher Bassett's Risk Practice Lead (Motor), Dr. Sandra Macdonald-Ames, argues that most of what's used to demonstrate risk management still falls short. Telematics can show what happened on the road, she says, but not why.
"Technology is incredibly valuable, but it only tells part of the story," she said.
This isn't only a pricing question - it's a liability one too, and it's one many clients underestimate. UK road traffic law includes provisions covering those who "use, cause or permit" certain driving offences, meaning an organisation can share responsibility for unsafe driving where workplace culture, supervision or operational expectations played a part.
A separate, well-established duty runs alongside it. The Health and Safety Executive requires employers to manage the risks to anyone driving, riding a motorcycle, or cycling for work in the same way they'd manage risk on a fixed site, including workers taken on through gig-economy arrangements.
Both routes point the same way - toward the employer, not just the driver, when something goes wrong, which is exactly the exposure that's hardest to price and hardest for a fleet using sub-contracted drivers to demonstrate it's managing well.
Macdonald-Ames explains the shortfall with a specific example: a harsh-braking alert records an outcome, not a cause. The driver behind it might have been distracted by time pressure, working somewhere risk-taking had quietly become normal, or grown complacent because earlier habits, like tailgating, hadn't yet led to harm.
Speeding gets singled out for the same reason. "For instance, drivers who speed may not be caught by the enforcement agencies, but it is known to be a factor in identifying future crash risk, so should be addressed," she said.
That case is broadly supported by DfT collision data, which lists exceeding the speed limit among the most common contributory factors in fatal crashes on Britain's roads.
Detection has been climbing too: DVLA figures show speeding endorsements rose from 678,367 in 2022 to 939,519 in 2025, an increase of almost 40%.
Enforcement is catching more drivers and the underlying behaviour still isn't falling, which supports the point Macdonald-Ames is making - enforcement catches only a fraction of the drivers doing it, and none of the drivers doing it because of something happening at work.
To close that gap, Macdonald-Ames uses an academically validated profiling tool that scores drivers on fatigue susceptibility, aggression, sensitivity to time pressure and compliance, feeding into coaching built around the specific cause behind each driver's profile rather than a blanket safety briefing.
What profiling adds that raw telematics can't is a pattern across a workforce, not just a single driver. Consistent fatigue findings, for instance, can point to scheduling, workload distribution or time-on-task limits rather than a string of unconnected bad decisions, and Gallagher Bassett has flagged that economic pressure - longer hours, second jobs, reduced recovery time - can make that pattern more likely to appear.
AXA UK has made a similar bet, against a market EY has forecast will swing back into a net underwriting loss this year. It has agreed a new partnership with Logistics UK, whose members employ more than seven million people across road, rail, water and air freight, to help fleet operators identify and manage risk before it becomes a claim rather than pricing around it after the event.
Read next: AXA and Logistics UK join forces for fleets
Macdonald-Ames frames the case for that kind of early intervention in similar terms.
"If drivers feel uncomfortable raising capacity concerns or believe productivity is valued over safety, it can quickly lead to risky decisions and crashes," she said, and pointed to identifying emerging risks before they settle into everyday operations as central to avoiding them.
"The most effective organisations don't wait for a collision to confirm that a problem exists. They take the opportunity to understand what drivers are experiencing today and act on those insights early. Lasting improvements are achieved when data is combined with expertise, direct engagement and a genuine understanding of our most important resource – people," she said.
