Ryder Creates One-Stop Shop for Buying, Insuring Used Commercial Vehicles

Buyers of used commercial vehicles were often on their own when it came to finding insurance for the vehicle. At best, they could hope that someone at the selling company could point them to an insurance agent they knew.

That changed in February when Ryder announced that it had selected InsurTech REIN to launch an embedded insurance program for Ryder’s used commercial vehicle sales customers. Now, buyers can consider REIN insurance at the point of truck purchase along with other services that are already offered there — financing, warranty and prepaid preventative maintenance.

“For a long time, we’ve been looking to add services and make sure that we’re providing services for our customers to look at Ryder as a one-stop shop,” Eugene Tangney, vice president of used vehicle sales at Ryder, told PYMNTS.

Serving a Growing Number of Trucking Companies

This is especially important now as there are more and more people entering the trucking market for the first time, Tangney said. With today’s supply chain challenges, there’s a lot of freight out there at high rates, and that’s leading people to form new companies. These newcomers need help getting into the trucking business.

“You have to set up insurance, you have to have your authority — there’s a lot of things to it,” Tangney said. “So, we want to be as consultative a seller as we can.”

For those who are already in the trucking industry and already have insurance, the offering of REIN at the point of purchase gives them an opportunity to compare rates.

Using Technology to Provide Speedy Service

For both types of customers, technology makes the application quick and easy. In its online portal and at its physical locations, Ryder offers the customer the choice of a QR code to scan or an 800-number to call to reach REIN, and the InsurTech takes it from there.

Together with insurance, Ryder offers at the point of purchase other services that customers will need to buy a truck and put it to work, including the financing, warranty and prepaid preventative maintenance (PM). Some are provided by Ryder itself, and some are provided by partners.

For the vehicle financing, there are multiple finance partners to cover any grade of credit. For the warranty, there’s an in-house offering as well as a third-party warranty, giving customers a choice of coverage.

“And, again, that’s done right then and there,” Tangney said. “As you’re buying the vehicle, that’s when that gets done, and when you leave the yard, you’ve got your finance, you’ve got your warranty and now you can have your insurance as well.”

Making it Simple for Customers

The prepaid PM is offered as well, and customers can by two or more PMs in advance, with each representing an appointment at Ryder for one original equipment manufacturer (OEM)-recommended service interval.

Customers who add this at the time they purchase the vehicle can include the cost of the PMs in the financing so that they’re spread out over their monthly payments. Also, they can lock in the labor rate and the parts rate — something that can be valuable at this inflationary time when prices are going up.

Finance partners encourage this, too, because when customers buy prepaid PMs and a warranty, it means that they are going to be taking care of the vehicle.

The prepaid PMs and the warranty can be bundled together into the bill of sale of the vehicle, and the insurance is handled by REIN. In each case, the providers have been vetted by Ryder and are offered to the customer when they need it — while researching the vehicle and when making the purchase.

“We’d obviously like the insurance to go the same way,” Tangney said. “We make it as simple as we can for our customers so that our customers can get on with their business.”