Thinking About Company Cars? Keep These In Mind

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There can be quite a few benefits to having company cars for your employees. If your business has the money for it, then it could be quite a tempting option, even if it’s only for specific employees. That doesn’t mean that you should get them as soon as possible.

You’ll need to put some effort into your decision. That will go beyond setting a budget for determining what models you want. You’ll need to make sure that you’re getting the right vehicles. Coupled with that are a few other things that you’ll need to be mindful of.

What To Know When Getting Company Cars

Know Who Is Responsible For Repairs

Like personal vehicles, company cars will need to be repaired and maintained. If you’re renting them, this might be as simple as letting the rental agency take care of this. In many cases, however, it isn’t going to be that simple. If the company owns the vehicles, then you’ll need to develop a policy for this maintenance.

It could be worth partnering with a car repair company to help with your needs. Doing so could offer quite a few benefits, such as a lower price. You’ll need the likes of transmission repairs, wheel changes, and much more for this. If you have trucks as part of your company’s fleet, you can click here to find out more about the kind of repairs you can get.

Having such a partnership should mean that your vehicles will be repaired relatively quickly. That’s because many repair companies will prioritize businesses they have these relationships with. That’ll get your vehicles back on the road quickly, which will reduce downtime and other costs among some employees.

Be Careful When Picking The Size

The size of your company cars should be a priority for you. It can often be one of the last things that you think of. When you’re determining roughly what size they should be, you should keep in mind what they’ll be used for.

If you’ll be using them for deliveries, for example, then you’ll want to go for a larger vehicle. On the other hand, a car that you’ll be using to get to and from meetings and other events shouldn’t be too big. In many cases, a small- to the mid-sized vehicle can be better recommended.

Keep Add-Ons In Mind

When you’re buying any car, there’ll be multiple optional extras to choose from. With your company cars, you should take a careful look at these to determine if any will be beneficial to your business. These will help to reduce depreciation, improve reliability, and much more.

Depending on what industry you’re in, many of these could be more than worth it. If your employees will need to go on long work trips, for example, satellite navigation will be a priority. That won’t come as standard in many vehicles, making it an upgrade that you should get. You can find other examples of this.

Consider The Aesthetics

Your company car will form part of your business’s branding. If you have your logo on the vehicles, then that’ll be especially true. That makes the car’s aesthetics quite important. You’ll need to make sure that the cars represent your company in the right way.

While that could mean paying extra for a better-looking option, it will make your business look more professional. Try to make this eye-catching in a good way. If people notice your company cars, then it’ll increase your brand awareness. Make sure that visibility is a positive one.

Get The Right Insurance

When you’re getting company cars, you’ll naturally know to get insurance for them. While you might think that some of the standard types of insurance will suffice, that mightn’t be the case. In a lot of cases, these wouldn’t offer the level of protection that your business will need.

Though choosing business-level car insurance will be more expensive, it could be well worth it. Nobody wants an accident to happen, but you definitely wouldn’t want to be out a significant amount of money if an accident happens.

There are several company car insurance policies that you can choose from. Each offers its pros and cons, so it’s worth looking at each of them before deciding.

Prioritize Fuel Economy

With company cars, most businesses will give their employees a fuel allowance. That’s essentially a guaranteed amount of gas for the vehicle that the company will pay for. It’s not uncommon for employees to go over this, however. If they have to go out of pocket a lot, then they could become unhappy and leave.

You wouldn’t want to pay too much for the car’s petrol, however. That makes choosing a fuel-efficient vehicle a priority. These will save you quite a bit of money in the long term. That isn’t the only benefit.

Should the vehicles you pick be gas guzzlers, then your employees will need to spend a lot of time refueling. If they’re on the clock for this, then you’ll be paying your workers to refill the car. While some of this will be unavoidable, you should aim to minimize it as much as you can.

Going with fuel-efficient vehicles will be the most recommended way of doing so.

Wrapping Up

Despite all of the benefits of company cars, there can also be multiple negatives. Keeping them repaired, getting them insured, and making sure that employees take care of them will all be large priorities. That means getting vehicles for some employees could be a stressful process.

In many cases, however, your employees will need these to do their jobs. That makes getting work-related cars for your workers an unavoidable process. You should keep all of the above in mind when you’re doing so.

It could also be worth developing a company policy focused on the use of these vehicles. That should be clearly communicated to your employees and outline how they should use and take care of these cars. In turn, that should help you reduce any incidents when the cars are being used.