You want your employees to stay safe on the road, especially while in a company-owned vehicle. For those who may travel great distances for work, having a company car is essential, so the costs of gas and travel don’t come out of their own pocket.

Company cars have several benefits, but they require great responsibility on behalf of the driver, too. Follow this checklist to see how any employer can start to trust their employees with responsibility for a company-owned vehicle.

1. Business Vehicle Insurance

Consider getting business or corporate insurance for your company cars. This insurance gives you more protection than personal car insurance would, so if you’re lending out quite a few vehicles, purchasing the right insurance is vital. This type of insurance does the same as any personal car insurance — protects the driver and the cost of damages if there happens to be a wreck somewhere.

Just remember that you are the one liable for any extreme bad driving your employees show on the road. As such, you may choose to have a driving class or restrict the use of company cars to only experienced drivers with excellent track records. Negligence is not an option, so carefully choose who will drive your company cars.

2. Detailed Records

Ensure that you keep a detailed record of which employees currently drive company cars and where they go. You might be able to install a tracker that maps out the routes a company car drives, allowing you to make sure you know where one of your cars is going. If you don’t have the resources or desire for tracking, ask your employees to keep a record of where they’ve gone and rely on the honor system.

Alongside your detailed records, you can motivate your employees to drive safely. Providing incentives for the safest drivers in your company can encourage everyone to be more aware when they drive — which ultimately protects them in both their personal and company cars and saves you the trouble of dealing with insurance.

3. Discretion Upon Hiring

You want to ensure that the people you trust with company property won’t speed or drive in other reckless ways. The best way to get ahead of this issue is to screen potential hires who may use company cars after they spend some time with your company. Look up driving records before you decide to hire someone. Think carefully about whether they would be a good fit for a position that requires or allows optional use of a company car.

Also, you should create policies and procedures for dealing with company cars that potential hires and existing employees can peruse before they choose to lease a company car. Make a set of rules that employees will have to follow to keep the company car, and if they don’t follow them, deal with repercussions accordingly.

4. Preventative Maintenance

Company cars see more wear and tear than personal cars, especially when traveling over long distances. As such, you may have to take your company cars in for maintenance more than your personal car. How much you get it seen by professionals depends on how often your employees drive the company cars and for how long.

Doing things like changing the brake fluid and checking on the AC unit can keep your company car running for years without a breakdown that could render it useless. With routine maintenance, you’ll know if something is wrong before the problem exacerbates. If an employee doesn’t keep the company car at their house and only uses it for trips, consider getting a car checked after every trip. Doing so will also let you know whether an employee should be held responsible for something happening to the vehicle.

Keep Your Employees and Your Company Property Safe

By the end of a given year, around 10% of all cars on the road are owned by a company rather than an individual. When your employees are traveling, you strive to keep them safe. By taking the steps listed above, you’ll ensure that only the safest, most trustworthy drivers are handling your company vehicles, thereby avoiding small issues like speeding in company cars.