Can dash cams increase ROI for your business?

If you learned that a single investment could potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, you’d be interested, right? Dash cams can increase your business’s return on investment (ROI) from several perspectives.

Truck dash cams can prevent theft, reduce unsafe driving behaviors, reduce accidents and reduce fuel costs. They may also prove valuable in case of an accident when you need to demonstrate your driver’s innocence. Here’s everything you need to know about building ROI through semi truck dash cams. 

And when you’re finished reading, check out the other articles in our ‘Dash cams for trucks’ series:

• Dash cam for semi trucks vs cars: What’s the difference?
• Truck dash cam benefits for road and driver safety
• Can dash cams increase ROI for your business?
• Best semi truck camera system guide

What is return on investment? 

ROI measures the financial impact of an investment. It is the most popular profitability metric companies use to compare the financial impact of actions. A high ROI means the investment performed well. A low ROI means the financial profitability was less. 

A good ROI for your business means your income is greater than your expenses — ideally much greater than your expenses.

Here’s an example: If your total business operation expenses, including salaries, fuel and truck purchase/repair/maintenance/rental, are $500,000 and you had $2 million in profit, the annual ROI would be 400%

ROI =$2 million/$500,000*100=400%

The disadvantage of the ROI is it does not account for the impact of time on an investment like stocks that an investor may hold for many years. But if you’re calculating annual ROI for a business this is not an issue. 

Are dash cams considered a good investment? 

Yes, for fleets of all sizes dash cams are considered a good investment. The average cost of a dash cam is $100 to $400 but can save a company hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance, gas, accidents and repairs. 

In the first quarter of 2021, fleets lost an average of $142,574 per cargo theft incident. Everyone thinks it can’t happen to them. That’s why semi truck dash cams that automatically activate can save your fleet from this type of theft. Some even include speakers so you can scare the thief away.

But dash cams do far more than just scare off would-be thieves. They pay off for companies in a variety of ways, including:

• Insurance discounts
• Protection against false claims
• Theft protection
• Less vehicle downtime
• Less idle time
• Improved safe driving behaviors
• Higher Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) scores
• Fewer accidents equals fewer costly repairs 
• Lower insurance premiums after accidents (proving driver’s innocence)

Taken together, it’s a wonder any company would choose not to have dash cams. The cost is minimal, and the returns are enormous in nearly every major expense category. 

How to increase ROI with dash cams

If you’re ready to increase your company’s ROI with dash cams, take a look at some of the biggest benefits in detail below. 

Receive insurance discounts

The way a dash cam will first pay for itself is through immediate insurance discounts. Dash cams streamline the commercial insurance claims process and reduce overall risk, and insurance companies are often willing to reward this. By improving driver safety, lowering accident risk and preventing insurance fraud, your company will save money and cost the insurance company less in the long term. With commercial insurance discounts, you’ll save money right away. 

Avoid false claims

False claims, also known as ‘crash for cash’ can cost your company more than any other accidents.  Accident blame and costs can be lowered with semi truck dash cam footage because many of these claims are one person’s word against another. The dash cam provides concrete evidence to reduce a situation of hearsay and save you on unfair damages, ultimately improving ROI.

Boost driver safety

Dash cams boost driver safety in a variety of ways. You can monitor unsafe driving behaviors and improve driver training. Dash cams can also help you to build a better work culture and reduce employee turnover or penalties. Satisfied, safe employees will do a better job, have higher job satisfaction and contribute to building the business’s reputation and growth. 

While high employee turnover can cut into ROI, dedicated employees contribute to a healthy company culture and growing ROI. With current severe driver shortages, employee retention is more important than ever to build business growth. 

Of course, safe driving practices have a direct impact on the bottom line. Bent steel and major repairs can cost you almost as much as a new vehicle. Safer driving behaviors lead to fewer accidents, which will cost your company less in both repairs and insurance payouts. 

Maximize efficiency

Dash cams can also help companies tackle fuel usage and overall efficiency. Fuel is the largest consistent expense for trucking companies. Dash cams can help monitor and reduce idle time. If a truck idles for an average of three hours at pickup and three hours at dropoff and burns a gallon of fuel per hour, a single truck could burn $2,100 in fuel with 100 loads per year. If you’ve got 10 trucks in a fleet, that is $21,000 thrown into wasted fuel each year.

Dash cams can also help improve efficiency on routing and times to reduce or optimize fuel costs. 

Increase your ROI with truck dash cams

In a business where everyone is looking for a competitive edge, investing in dash cams is increasingly becoming standard. Semi truck dash cams can build a company’s ROI from nearly all angles: savings on commercial insurance, improved driver safety, better driver retention, reduced fuel costs and reduced accidents. With such minimal initial investment dash cams can lead to an ROI of 5,000% to 20,000% or more. There really is no downside. 

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