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

Not an advert! Avoid them all apart from LV and trinity.

That’s different. They will always take it with a tow truck. They don’t want to be adding mileage and risk to your car - they may crash it etc and it’s easier logistically. He can take yours and do the next drop without needing a lift. When it gets to Copart, they’ll use a fork lift to move it about the yard. Obviously this can cause further damage. To Copart, driveable simply means pulls forwards on its on steam.

I imagine this will be uneconomical to repair. The problem being that all these costs also go into claim. I once had a Bentley with small damage but due to the Covid parts shortage and the cost of the replacement vehicle was extortionate, this car was written off as it was cheaper for the ins co.

PS my insurance company was Swinton if any one wants to add it to their avoid list

Well done for spotting this, I was told by my insurance company to contact a company called Kindertons for a courtesy car back in January and the issues from that are still dragging on. Like you I was never told this at all and didn't realise until Kindertons started harassing me months later that there were any issues! I'm currently considering sending them a Letter Before Action about this.

Thanks for this OP. I pay extra to get a courtesy car in my policy but clearly I shouldn't bother.

The whole car insurance system is dreadful. I drive a pretty old car but would probably get about £2500 if I sold it. A couple of years ago it had the catalytic converter stolen from the driveway of a family member's house where we were staying. The insurers wanted to write it off, even though we were able to find our own repairer who could repair it for around £500. The insurers wanted Copart to take it so we had to arrange for it to be towed back privately. I did get a courtesy car through the insurers. Luckily didn't end up having to pay extra but they would only supply it for 3 days when we really needed it longer.

It's all become so complicated and such a difficult system to navigate.

Mine did exactly the same thing and I only found out when the hire company got in touch to say the third party insurers had not responded to pay costs and to let me know the hire company were instructing solicitors.
It was absolutely routes to me as a 'courtesy car' and that's what it is in my insurance policy but when I phoned insurer to query they were very non plussed and just said 'that's how it's done' these days!

Which insurance company was this? 😳

Churchill and auxillis here too.

Other drive wrote off both his and our car and got done for careless driving by the police.

Meanwhile we got offered a hire car by our insurers, which we accepted.

Other insurance company phoned and says to take their hire car instead as they'd only pay £12 a day for our car so any more of a bill from our insurers for our hire and we'd need to pay ourselves as they'd reject our claim.

We didn't know how much we were getting charged per day as it wasn't mentioned.

Ended up numerous back and forth emails and our insurers saying because we'd paid for legal cover they'd fight this.

But what if we hadn't paid for that? They'd have hit us with a big bill.

Shocking.

And as the car was written off we only got a week to source another car. Which was really difficult as it had under 20k and yet it was over ten years old in really good condition.

Not impressed. These companies should be wearing masks. Disgusting.

Except they can refuse to pay. In my relative's case they refused because the cost of the hire car which was pushed at him (like for like as his own) and time the insurance company spent at this end was in their view 'excessive'. So they just never paid!

NB the insurance company ended up not being involved even though they were taking the premium every month. It was all handled by a claims management company and credit hire company. None of the three of the three companies answered emails or the phone without an extraordinary amount of time (days at least) trying to get them to communicate then eventually when they did they would pass it on to one of the others. This is clearly all part of their desire to keep the car hire running for as long as possible.

If not your fault, claim directly from third party insurers, not your own. Then they pay everything directly, including the courtesy car which then won’t be a credit hire car. It’s what we’ve done twice for both accidents we’ve been involved with neither being our fault. We only notified our own insurance company and told them we’d be dealing direct.

It is possible the courts would view this practice in a similar way they viewed the car sales commission practice. If insured individuals are unaware they are being given costly hire cars instead of courtesy cars, the small print is too small or it is not being explained clearly. That could be the reason why many of the cases mentioned in this post are settled just before the court case is heard. It will be a brave individual who refuses to settle and goes to court but the chances of them winning must surely be boosted by the car sales commission verdict.

This horrendous. A family member was told they would not have to pay for the courtesy car (they arranged a top of the range 4WD as a replacement for their own car). The accident was completely no fault (rear ended at traffic lights) so the insurance company said don't worry - other party would be paying for the car. Only the other insurance company refused to pay. Meanwhile my relative's insurance company delayed and delayed getting the damaged car assessed as written off or not and it just sat in their garage for months. Now the bill has ended up at over £30k and they are getting the court on to him to recover it. This is a household name insurance company with excellent reviews on Trust Pilot.
If I ever need a courtesy car I will never take one from the insurance company - I'll buy a cheap runaround instead and sell it afterwards.

Correct it’s not the customer doing anything, most of us want it done quick and cheap for all sides involved.

But….there are scammers turning over the insurance companies with fake claims….this is being recouped resourcefully by insurers from honest customers IMO it is easier than taking scammers to court or charging them criminally.

Glad to have read this thread and am now aware of this absolute scam, thanks OP

My insurance Admiral, explaining so sweetly on the phone that Auxillus was fine and not a dodgy company, tried to pressurise me and that it was best for me.

This needs outlawing. My contract is with my insurer, but Admiral has gone downhill, they used to be good, sunk very low by trying this on with me, actively misleading. But I didn’t fall for it.

I am with Admiral and the UK call handlers actively pushed and tried to’ make me go for Auxillus. Fortunately I know about the credit hire aka claims management company racket, I was shocked because it used to be that they just sold your details on and some dodgy credit hire companies bombarded you with calls and lied a lot. But this was Admiral - I was disgusted

Yabu. This is why insurance is so expensive. People fleecing the system. Give them the car back and arrange your own transport, it sounds like your car is driveable. Or you may end up with a huge bill, it's hardly fair to expect others to pay for it through increased premiums.

We have literally this month come to the end of a 2 year case when my husband’s car got hit by a flat bed lorry side bar that hadn’t been locked properly, it smashed his windscreen and he could have been killed. We had what we thought was a courtesy car but was in-fact a credit hire car. Their insurance wouldn’t pay for it and said we needed to! We had to disclose all our finances, explain transactions and personal information to the solicitors it was awful, we basically had to prove we couldn’t afford to pay for the hire car ourselves. Just before our day in court they settled. Very stressful indeed! I will never ever accept a hire/courtesy car ever again!!!!!

You’ve got me worried now!
My car and my neighbour’s were both hit last week Wednesday too, a passer by took a photo before the guy drove off. It seems to be being dealt with by a claims management company and I have been given a hire car. They anticipate that the agreed write off cost will be paid tomorrow although nobody has yet admitted liability.
The caveat about this potentially being my cost I had ignored because I can’t see how it could possibly be claimed I was at fault when my car was parked and I was at work. Really don’t need a big bill…