To think that a courtesy car should not be a hidden credit hire car

But the problem is that people are being made to feel by their insurer that this is their only, and a reasonable option.

It's not like you are given any other options.
(Other than fund it yourself, but of course you have already paid for courtesy car cover so that would make no sense)

Oh my goodness, I was not aware of this at all. When buying insurance I always ignore the random insurance companies instead going for a recognised name. This has probably been of no benefit.

I had this too last year. I refused to accept the car & managed, but it felt very dodgy

The logic is that as the victim you have the right to be put back in the position you were in: in this case with the use of a car, but you should do this in a reasonable and cost effective way, not taking the piss. So you shouldn't rent a chauffeur-driven limo, or take black cabs for your daily commute for example: a hire car is a more reasonable option.

Credit hire firms don't ask for payment until you've won your case against the perpetrator, and that's their justification for being so much more expensive than just ringing up Herz or Enterprise. But if you've got 500 quid in your bank account, or access to a credit card then the opposing side would argue that you should have just hired a car in the conventional way rather than going for more expensive credit hire option. It's all really complicated and there's a lot of case law.

By analogy, if my upstairs neighbour's bath overflows and the leak soaks my bed, then I can go and buy a new mattress for a thousand pounds and sue them for it. If I buy it on a high cost finance deal and expect them to pay an extra 300 for the interest then I'd expect pushback for why I made that choice and whether it was strictly necessary.

Bear in mind that the extra you might have paid for a courtesy car was paid to your insurer. The company who's paying for the credit hire vehicle is the other insurer.

Also good idea to draw to attention of MSE.

Very wise and thank you for this thread. I shall do that if this ever happens to me again

No. I pay extra on my insurance for a “guaranteed hire car”. When provided it was from Auxilis, a credit hire company. Not a courtesy car at all.

I don’t understand the logic as to why people have been asked in court to prove they couldn’t afford it. That implies if you could afford it you would have to pay it.

Go you op!

I had no choice in the car they hired on my behalf, I was told it was a like for like which probably would have been the case except car hire firms don’t rent out ten year old cars so I got a brand new version of my Q5.

I had a credit protection arrangement and was told that as long as I do everything asked of me I wouldn’t have to pay anything. I spent hours and hours and had to produce bank statements for every account and credit card I had to be produce in court, to prove that I wouldn’t have been able to afford it myself. But I could have, so in court the other side won on that count.

Thing is that I pay extra for a courtesy car so there would be no need for me to pay for it myself, I didn’t understand that I was no longer dealing with my insurance company / policy, so it never crossed my mind. My barrister said that people don’t understand what they’re signing because it’s written in legal jargon, you’re ‘sold’ it as something really helpful when you’re dealing with a really stressful thing.

I really don’t understand how they can get away with this. It’s immoral

that would be a courtesy car - credit hire different. Hence scam element as v. Unclear

Labour announced in June that they would be tackling car insurance costs. I hope this racket comes into it. The MP for transport is Louise Haigh: members.parliament.uk/member/4473/contact
If anyone/ everyone caught up in this scam wants to contact her and share their story maybe Labour can outlaw it.

We were nearly caught by this but cancelled our claim in time as the accident (not my fault) resulted in only minor damage and I didn't want my lovely car written off (which they were going to do) and also have had previous experience of a third party denying responsibility in a hit and run.

Ultimately, there's a long standing requirement within insurance that the "victim" must mitigate their losses, so basically anyone asking for a bigger/better hire car than they need isn't "mitigating" the losses, they're basically taking the piss. Likewise it's arguable that if you've another car available (i.e. a two car family) then you may not actually "need" a replacement car at all if most of your journeys could be done by the other car, with just occasional taxi use if the times you needed a "second" car were few and far between.

It's just like if your home is damaged to the extent you can't live in it. You can't expect your insurance firm to put you up in a five star hotel or pay rent for a house much bigger than you need. They're only going to pay for bare essentials.

Or if your holiday luggage gets lost or stolen, you're only going to get insurance to pay out for your essentials whilst on holiday and basic standards, so more Next than Gucci!

So people thinking they can "get away with" a hire car far better/bigger than their own damaged one should really have given their head a wobble, however persuasive the hire company were.

We got referred to one of these credit hire firms once and I started to smell a rat when, on the phone, they asked whether we had another car we could use, whether we needed a hire car for work, etc., and then even more so when they texted/emailed the credit agreement which was quite clear that I'd have to pay their car hire charges if the insurance firm didn't pay them, and then showed the weekly rate to be stupidly high, something like £750 per week! I very quickly decided not to agree to those terms and phoned them back to cancel the car!

Credit hire has been the subject of significant scrutiny for years - well over a decade as it really is a racket. Certain 'law firms' were set up by the credit hire companies to purely recover credit hire costs.

Enterprise isn't actually a credit hire place like some of the places being referred to here. In fact, when these sorts of fees end up in court, the rates charged by credit hire companies are often reduced to those of companies like enterprise.

I think you're misunderstanding. In our cases, because we were dealing directly with the third party insurers, it was them who organised and paid for the hire car themselves, so not a matter of refunding anyone as they effectively "pre-agreed" the cost and provision of the car hire because they organised it themselves. Presumably they could keep control that way of the costs and car - it was the smallest/cheapest possible car, we had no choice! It was very time-limited, basically just as long as it took them to make a decision and five days after pay out after which time the car hire firm came to collect it. We didn't sign or agree anything other than to sign a sheet confirming the condition of the car upon delivery and how much petrol it had. At no point we were "On the hook" for anything.

Your own insurance company will check the motor insurance database and tell you who the third party was insured with. Then you phone them, and give them the registration number and drivers' details, and they'll be able to trace the policy and can then start the claim process.

Another victim here! Few years back. Car went into back of me at lights. Very 'helpful' rep at my dealership passed me on to their 'independent claims handler'

Got given this massive top of range SUV I didn't even want (with the whole 'this is the only courtesy car available right now, lucky you') and clocked up a bill of several thousands as the work mysteriously took longer than planned despite being very simple .

Driver's insurance co queried excessive costs and was told it was going to court, I should appoint a barrister etc. majorly stressful. The law firm I was dealing with on my side turned out to have the same business address as the claims handler - SO dodgy!

Settled in the end without having to go to court, but I could have done without it. My partner said I obviously hadn't read the small print and fell for a scam too easily, but he wasn't there when the dealership we'd trusted for years sweet talked me and 100 per cent it would have happened to him too!

It worked out fine for me financially in the end, but the stress it piled on me right after a quite nasty accident was horrible. It felt like I was trapped in an impossible corner

Most times it works out fine for the customer of the CH firm but even if it's OK for them it's a hugely dysfunctional system which bumps up costs and premiums. All the insurers have got addicted to this system, whereby instead of just managing claims in the most efficient way to keep costs low they offset their costs by getting kickbacks from third parties who charge inflated rates and reclaim from the other side.

It badly needs intervention from the regulators because any firm who tries to do the right thing and not engage will lose out.

Our insurance tried to pass us off to Enterprise to manage the claim. I spent a morning arguing with an unpleasant customer service rep telling her I will not deal with any 3rd party who are clearly on the make. Told her my policy is with them and I will only deal with them. Eventually they allowed us to do the car repair through our local garage without extra charge (there was a fee if we didn't want to use Enterprise which I told them to get stuffed on). It should be illegal.

I don’t understand the logic about people having to supply bank statements to prove they couldn’t afford to pay themselves.

I mean, the who thing is a disgraceful scam, but that part isn’t even logical. So what if you could afford to pay yourself? If it was a no fault claim, and the insurer has arranged to have the car provided, often after the consumer having paid additional on the policy for that service, why then should there be an argument that the consumer could have afforded to pay it themselves?

This happened to me as well - an accident caused by a BT van the day before the school year started 200 miles away from home. I needed a car to get back!

Eventually got the call to say they wanted my bank statements because BT said I could afford to pay myself. Told them to fuck off, never heard from them again. Sounds like I was very lucky, from some of the stories here.

There is no way it was made clear to me by my insurance company that my claim was being handed over to some sort of claim management company. The conversation was something like “you’re entitled to a courtesy car, you’ll get a phone call from x and they will arrange this”. Literally that. You just assume that the insurance company have delegated that side of things as they don’t actually have their own courtesy cars at Aviva or whoever. But was very much under the impression that it was free/no risk of a bill/part of my insurance package. Felt like a total scam.