A fleet policy is not a museum piece, it is a timetable: vehicles join, leave and get swapped throughout the year. In a good system, all of this is a handful of emails – in a poor one, it is uncovered days, wasted premium and disputed claims. This article explains how adding and removing vehicles works, in both directions.
- Cover for a new vehicle is not automatic: the framework only applies to reported vehicles – notify us on the day you acquire it.
- For removal, the exact date matters: cover and premium run until that date, and settlement is pro rata.
- The insurer also asks for documents proving the change of interest (sale, deregistration) – part of the monthly routine.
- The backbone is a live vehicle list: a spreadsheet, not a scattered email trail.
A vehicle arrives
A new vehicle enters the fleet framework through notification: registration number, chassis number, registration document details, usage – together with the casco requirement and, for use abroad, the Green Card request. The good routine is to send the notice on the day of purchase or lease handover, so that there is ideally no gap between registration and cover. Transitional situations – trade plates, a vehicle not yet registered – are subject to separate rules, and it is worth asking about these in advance. For a broker client this is one email: I forward the details to the insurer; it is worth keeping the confirmation on file and updating the vehicle list at the company.
A vehicle leaves
For a sale, end of lease, or deregistration, the removal date is what matters: cover and premium run up to that date. Two common mistakes to avoid: forgetting to remove a vehicle (paying for months on a car you no longer own), and removing it too early (leaving the vehicle uncovered in the days before handover). Premium settlement is pro rata – tracking any refund due is part of the routine, as is documenting the change of interest (sale and purchase agreement, deregistration decision).
A swap: two steps at once
When you swap a vehicle, adding and removing run together: the new car enters the framework, the old one leaves, ideally on the same day. The casco matrix comes into play here too: full cover is typically more justified on the new vehicle than it was on the outgoing one – it is worth making this decision together with the swap, not afterwards. Category levels are covered in the cover-levels article.
The backbone: a live fleet list
Every change is only as smooth as the list is organised: registration number, category, casco status, roles, renewal date, notes. This vehicle list is the shared foundation for premium settlement, claims and renewal tendering. A ready-made structure and tips for filling it in: vehicle list template; step-by-step: adding/removing checklist.
Special cases: trade plates, a laid-up vehicle, seasonal operation
Not every change is a purchase or a sale. Vehicles not yet registered, on trade plates, or temporarily taken off the road are subject to separate rules – it is worth asking about these when the situation arises, not afterwards. For seasonal fleets (agriculture, winter shutdown in construction), managing longer periods of downtime can also be a question: which cover should stay active on vehicles standing at the depot – the depot vehicles article gives background on this. The common denominator in every special case is the same: notify us in time, document the decision, and keep the list updated – the rest is my job.
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