In the beverage industry, it’s common for companies to provide their field employees with a vehicle. These employer-provided vehicles, often described as fleets, offer the company certain benefits, but also have their drawbacks – which usually come in the form of liabilities.

Fleet programs are often popular because they provide employers with full control and oversight over the vehicles that employees drive. They are able to choose vehicle safety features, specialty vehicles or highly-branded exteriors. Operations using fleets can also leverage installed telematics to gain 24/7 insight into their vehicles’ locations and travel – something few drivers would allow to be installed in their personal vehicles.

On the other side, fleets can have their drawbacks. In addition to the cost of purchasing the vehicles themselves, fleet owners need to consider the monetary and time costs of added liabilities such as managing insurance and upkeep. These create both legal risk, and further administrative work for your business. There is also the matter of how employees will use those vehicles for personal use. Is your company willing to eat the cost for a few inevitable non-business related trips, or will you seek to recover some of those costs? If you do want to recover personal use costs, how will you fairly and accurately track the appropriate chargebacks?

While defaulting to a fleet is common, it’s not always the most cost-effective vehicle program for your operations. This is particularly true for rapidly-growing companies including Amoskeag Beverages LLC, which recently found itself reevaluating its vehicle program.