A haulage company has saved almost £26,000 on its insurance bill after equipping each of its vehicles with ‘incident cameras’.

Brian Yeardley Continental installed the security systems as a deterrent to would-be ‘crash-for-cash’ scammers, thieves and illegal immigrants who could be tempted to stow away in the firm’s trucks at Calais.

Six months after fitting the cameras to his 43 lorries and eight company cars, managing director Kevin Hopper was delighted to discover a reduction in his fleet insurance from more than £135,000 to around £110,000. The cameras cost £7,000.

Since installing the cameras the company’s accident rates have gone down from 15 last year to seven so far in 2013; a pro-rata reduction of 5.5 incidents. At the insurance policy excess of £1,300 per crash, the cameras have so far helped to save a further £7,150.

The company – which has its depot at Ashford’s Connect 10 industrial estate – has also reported no stowaways this year, compared to a small but significant count of five illegal immigrants discovered in its trailers last year. Drivers can be fined up to £2,000 per individual found.

Mr Hopper puts the reductions down to the cameras, made by specialist company Smart Witness.

He said: “I wish I could have installed Smart Witness 20 years ago. Year on year our insurance bill has gone up and up but now it has finally gone down.

“Since fitting Smart Witness and fitting the stickers to the trucks and on the rear doors of our trailers where the immigrants normally make entry we have not had any incidents or theft and I do apportion a lot of this down to Smart Witness.

“We have stickers on our fleet warning road users that we have cameras and I think it also deters thieves from breaking in.”

“Our drivers are often away for up to eight weeks at a time and it gives me a peace of mind knowing that when they are parked up, the cameras are there to help protect them.”