Peter Johansson, principal risk engineer at Zurich Resilience Solutions, is a member of a team convened to put together a guide to help its clients transition to electric vehicles.
“There’s nothing out there that covers everything — from procurement, selection, energy, infrastructure, driver assessment, training, operation, crash, claim, repair, salvage, disposal, to end of life,” said Johansson, speaking on the side of the Australasian Fleet Managers Association conference in May where Zurich had a stand in the exhibition.
I think he’s right. I’ve seen some covering vehicle selection, and charging considerations and getting employees onside. I haven’t seen any on how to consider and cost insurance.
That may be because pricing risk on electric vehicles involved in accidents for insurance purposes is a developing area.
Bradley Henniker, an assessing manager at Innovation Group, an accident claims manager, said there isn’t a whole lot of electric vehicle accidents on which to accurately price risk.
“They are starting to come on. It’s just not a huge number of cars,” said Henniker, from his exhibition stand at AfMa.
Elsewhere, at NTI, Australia’s biggest insurer of trucks, there’s a lot of heads being applied to the task of trying to work out how to price risk of electric trucks, including those of Alisha Hill, national product manager heavy motor packages, and Craig Carmody, national development manager.
While an electric truck might have a purchase price double that of a comparable internal combustion engined vehicle, the risk isn’t double, they told me as we stood in the main exhibition hall at the Brisbane Truck Show. A ding in a fender in a delivery bay is going to have the same cost of repair whether it’s an electric truck or an internal combustion engined vehicle.
“What we’ve done is try and make sure insurance isn’t a barrier and that the pricing is tailored to suit the vehicle,” said Hill, adding NTI was passionate about ESG, or environmental, safety and governance principles.
Meanwhile, Johansson talked about some of the trickier issues and concerns.
“First of all, the actual static risk of when it’s parked up charging. There are risks associated with EVs, including fire when a vehicle is charging,” said Johansson, adding, there’s been incidents of fires around the world involving commercial vehicles, buses and trucks plugged into faulty chargers overnight. “And the batteries, being lithium batteries, can burn for a long time.”
A report by firefighting information group FireRescue1 said studies into EV battery fires are underway in the US, Sweden, Finland, and Germany among other places. “Lithium-ion batteries are a worldwide fire issue,” the report published in April said.
Johansson said another consideration is that of potential damage during an accident.
“There are some EVs that, for example, have the battery integrated with the chassis of the vehicle. So what was a minor crash in the past could result in far greater damage for an EV.”
It could mean writing off a vehicle prematurely. There’s lots to consider.
“Clients who are considering selecting and transitioning to EVs should ensure they are aware of the many considerations involved, and that’s where ZRS come in,” said Johansson, adding, “We are in the process of developing a guide to help clients understand these elements.”
