Tracking could combat revenue loss

Tracking of rental car fleets and credit hire organisation-owned (CHO) vehicles could help claw back up to 10% of revenue according to In-Car Cleverness.

Vehicles owned by CHOs and rental car companies are often targets of fraud and theft, driving up costs and reducing revenue through vehicle downtime.

Total lost revenue is estimated to be in the tens of millions of pounds annually across CHOs and rental firms alone; equal to at least 10% of revenue in the sector.

In response, In-Car Cleverness is increasingly engaging with the CHO market as well as the established rental and dealer sectors to help protect their assets.

The analysis comes after an In-Car Cleverness ‘OnboardPlus’ tracking service secured the recovery of yet another vehicle, this time from a CHO based in Manchester.

Once the theft was identified, the vehicle’s location was pinpointed and all details were provided to the Police, who recovered the car within 24 hours of the theft taking place.

As well as outright theft, CHOs and car rental firms are often the target of staged ‘cash for crash’ accidents and other types of fraud, all of which drives up the cost of insurance for all drivers.

In fact, one in seven personal injury claims – some 69,500 a year – are linked to suspected ‘crash for cash’ scams, costing the motor industry £392 million annually.

Paul O’Dowd of In-Car Cleverness said, ‘It is almost impossible to always stay one step ahead of the fraudsters, but what’s clear is that business needs to do everything it can to stamp it out.

‘Car rental firms and CHOs are hit extremely hard by theft and various types of fraud so they must consider technology to protect their fleets. It’s a battle that must be fought, otherwise criminals will be emboldened.

‘One way of doing so is by using modern tracking techniques and telematics; these are extremely effective tools now at the industry’s disposal.’