Sarasota County, Fla., has contracted The CEI Group, Inc., to provide accident management services for its 3,000-vehicle fleet. Previously, the County contracted out to commerical shops. The contract, initiated by Sarasota County Risk Management, calls for CEI to manage collision repairs for the county’s entire fleet and includes vehicles in its sheriff, fire, transit, and fleet departments, according to the company. Repairs will be conducted at collision repair centers participating in CEI’s managed network. CEI’s quality control department will review all estimates for cost control, savings, and timeliness.

In addition to central warehousing of vehicle claims data, Kathi Croze, CEI’s national manager of the government fleet market, said the program allows government fleets to save staff time in administering and monitoring repairs. Fleet personnel can approve repairs, view the claims process, and access complete program data and reports via CEI’s online client application, ClaimsLink.