Menacing letter from their insurer after crash

NorthofWatford

My wife was hit by another driver.

Wanted to take hire car from our insurer until car is repaired. We received the paperwork today

Get letter today from other persons insurer saying

1.) We will give you a free car while your insurer will ask you to sign a credit agreement - so its not free even though your insurer says it is

2.) They go on to say that if I turn down their offer they will consider this ' a failure to mitigate losses ' and any hire charges would be contested in court.


Sounds a bit worrying. Whats the likelyhood of being sued if we take the car hire from our own insurers? We are being pressured to decide in next 24 hours so any advice/ thoughts/ comments would be appreciated.

amandada

I think if it were me, I'd call my own insurance company and run it past them-sorry, I have no idea other than that

NorthofWatford

I think you are right - I'll phone them in the morning. They might have heard of this before.

Paradigm

Contact your insurers for advice & forward them the letter. Forward all other correspondence to your insurer, unanswered!

mattymoo

Credit Hire Agreements - have a look at the insurance board for a thread about Drive Assist. Basically a credit hire agreement involves you signing an agreement for the hire of the car. You will be required to co-operate with recovering the cost of that hire car from the other party. They do all the work but you may need to provide a statement.

The ultimate catch though is this. If they are unable to recover the hire car cost from the other person or their insurers, you will become liable for the costs.

Rarely happens because they are selective with the cases they take on but it is a potential pitfall you need to be (and should be) made aware of.

Mitigate losses - this is the common law duty to mitigate your losses following an accident by not hiring for any longer than necessary and hiring a similar vehicle.

So, if you had a Fiesta but hired a Merc for 3 months even though repairs only took 2 weeks, the other side could rightly tell you to get lost. Provided you return the hire car promptly after return of your own car you should be fine.

Have a look here for some more info - http://www.abi.org.uk/TPHire/

LinasPilibaitisisbatman

Basically as said your insurer will get a third party to do the car hire etc. they will then charge the other party ridiccolous costs (£100 a day etc)

Tbh you get a car either way and the car being given by the other insurer is far less risk to you as the laws re compensation do mean losses need to be mitigated and by using a far more expensive hire that is clearly not happening.

Sirbendy

I got a letter to that effect after I got rear-ended, 4 days after my insurance had sorted me out with their own hire car.

I called them, said "company X say this, it's quite snotty, shall I tell them to get bent?"

The response was "we know of the clauses referred to, and it only applies if they've made the offer in good time, before we have. As we sorted it on the night it happened and they left it 4 days, just ignore them. They're trying it on."

So I left it..the other insurance co. called me, asked me what I was driving..when I said "not that it's any of your business, but it's a 57 plate Golf 1.6FSI 6 speed automatic", they very snottily demanded to know why I had "such a level of vehicle" - I said "It's equivalent to the one your client wrote off. A 1.6 automatic.Now, I'll be forwarding a transcript of this conversation to my insurer, so Good day to you" and hung up.

If your insurer has made an offer for courtesy car supply before the other drivers insurance, go with either..I stuck with the one my insurance provided and turned theirs down with amusement. At £80 a day rental cost, maybe their client will think twice before driving like a c0ck and hitting a car hard enough to twist the chassis because he wasn't paying attention and going too fast.

As it is, I had the car for 7 days while I went to work and whatnot, and sourced a replacement vehicle myself. It's not that I'm nice, but having a £16k+ car to look after in a school environment is very worrying when I'm used to sub-£2k cars.

Call your insurer and ask for advice...mine were spot on. Don't let the !!!!!!s stress you out, they're trying it on and entering a piddling contest.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

If its someone elses fault you are entitled to be reimbursed from their insurance company the reasonable cost of a hire car for the period you are without one.

Reasonable is likely to mean same standard of car not a Ferrari for a Fiesta...

& if car hire is available for £150 per week for the same standard the bill must be around the same amount..

dacouch

The only problem Sir Bendy is the credit hire company you used have to get their money back from the other Insurers. If they are not reimbersed within 1 year then they sometimes will come to you for payment of the car. Thats what the credit agreement you signed is for, some of the credit hire companies will pursue the money but some do not.

gaz_jones

I was hit by another driver a few weeks ago now and the guy admitted liability. They have given me a 1.8TDCi focus. 08 plate. I've had it for about 15 days so far and I think I'll have it for another month still. This is all being paid for by the 3rd parties insurance obviously as it was his fault. Say I had the car for 40 days how much do you think the other insurance company would be charged? Would it be as someone above said and maybe £100 a day? Surely £4000 on a hire car is ridiculous.

roswell

When i got rear ended last year i had a vectra 1.9 cdti 150 from 16th december till end of feb while mine was repaired the other party had to foot the bill for this and when it was dropped of the guy unofficialy said £120 a day these things ;-) I didnt bother workiong the maths out but the hire car costs would have been in excesss of the value of my car alone.