Council vehicle insurance premiums jump up due to increasing number of accidents

Staff are to be surveyed to find out if there is a reason for the change

Cherwell District Council’s vehicle insurance premiums have increased by more than 50 to 60 percent due to a steep rise in the number of accidents that the authority’s vehicles have been involved in during the last year.

At a meeting of the council’s Accounts, Audit and Risk Committee last night councillors considered the Annual Health and Safety report.   This detailed the number of accidents involving council vehicles during the past twelve months – a figure that had risen from 10 in 2023-24 to 45 during the last year.

Councillor Robert Parkinson quizzed officers on the reasons for this increase.   He was told the council had been increasingly relying on agency drivers, but there had been evidence of a downward trend in the number of incidents since April.

Councillor Parkinson continued to push and asked what effect the number of accidents had on the council’s vehicle insurance premiums.

Michael Furness, who’s the Assistant Director of Finance, acknowledged the premiums had increased and noted the council’s insurers were now working with the council to try and find out the cause of the problem.

Mr Furness said: “They absolutely have gone up by in excess of 50 or 60 percent.   [Accident numbers have] been a significant increase this year, which you can see from the evidence of that graph.   There’s clearly a reason behind that.”

He added: “Whilst the premiums have gone up, they would rather not pay anything out obviously.   So they have been working with people in my team and people in environmental services to develop an appropriate questionnaire to give up to the drivers so that they can try to get an understanding of what’s going on, what might have changed.”

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Published: 29/05/2025 02:17pm by the Banbury FM News Team

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