Car Accident - not my fault (driveassist)

jarzon

Hello All

I hope someone will be able to help me. My wife had a accident in our car which we have insured thru Churchil on 3rd party only.
She was driving on a main road when guy in a big 4x4 run into her drive side. We got a call from Driveassist who offered us a hire car as our car has a big damage done to the driver door. They told us they will recover the hire cost from the 3rd party. It has now been 3 months and nothing has happend yet. When we call them they say they are in a contact with the 3rd party insurance who are not accepting the liability but need to see the damage to our car before they decide what to do.
Today I called them again and they said they will colect the hire car.

Do you know who can we turn to for help? I can only guess there is now good couple of tousand on the hire care (considering our car was only worth £1300) and I do not want to pay for this. The accident was not my wife's fault and if needed we will take it to court but I have no idea what to do?

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

DrScotsman

jarzon wrote: »

It has now been 3 months

Today I called them again and they said they will colect the hire car.

T-T-T-T-T-T-THREE MONTHS!? :eek:

For my tiny little Clio, DA gave me a 5 door Corsa - this is presumably one of their lowest range cars. The price was £45.75 per day excluding insurance (I'm a young driver so it's best if we leave that out). At 90 days you're looking at well over £4000.

I think for that much money you should seriously consider getting proper legal advice (as I've heard many times on these forums, most solicitors give 1st half hour free). But as far as free advice goes, here's what to do to prepare for the worst:

1. You need to call up Churchill and find out if Drive Assist were acting on behalf of them. Judging by your description it sounds like they're not, but if they are then everything is Churchill's responsibility. It seems most insurers just hand over details to DA and twiddle their thumbs, but my insurer has held up their hands and told me that DA act on behalf of them.

2. Think of the wording of the telephone calls you had - you can get these from DA for just £10 under the Data Protection Act. If the wording misled you into believing that they would not recover the costs from you under any circumstances then they probably can't hold you liable. Someone on here said they'd specifically been told a few times that they wouldn't have to pay under any circumstances, but even the phrasing "We will recover the costs from the 3rd party" might be enough to go on.

3. Do you have legal cover on your insurance policy? If yes, it should cover recovering reasonable costs from the third party, and if your wife was clear cut not liable then this should be trivial. Now I doubt having the hire car for that long counts as a reasonable cost, however if it turns out that Drive Assist have been liaising with the 3rd party far too slowly, or instantly received a response but neglected to inform you for all this time, then I think you might have a case for a complaint against DA to the Ombudsman for the remainder of the car hire.

4. If all else fails: For the cost of the hire car to exceed the cost of the car is madness. Now I don't know about the legal liability of them making sure their product was right for you, but if you told them/they knew how much your car was worth then I think the Financial Ombudsman (whom they're regulated by) would have something to say to them, as it's clearly a bad business practice.

Please keep us updated. I'd really appreciate knowing how far DA are willing to take things.

dacouch

DA are well known for "Finding" damage to the hire car, they will typically try and charge you £200 for this.

If you need more info on this or help on DA there are lots of threads on MSE, moneysupermarket and honestjohn forums

DrScotsman

dacouch wrote: »

DA are well known for "Finding" damage to the hire car, they will typically try and charge you £200 for this.

If you need more info on this or help on DA there are lots of threads on MSE, moneysupermarket and honestjohn forums

I thought I forgot to mention something, read all of the MSE threads like dacouch says.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Amoneysavingexpert.com+drive+assist

jarzon

Well just to give you update it has been 4 months but still nothing has happened, noone has inspected our car - nothing. The hire care is back with Drive Assist so we are now about 1.5 months without that car.
I have called DA today to see what is happening and they said the 3rd party insurance is saying it was my wifes fault and now it is with Churchill again. I called Churchill they said they will put me thru to the person dealing with it I was on hold for about an hour but then I gave up what they told me before they put me on hold was that because I was insured only as 3rd party they will not be looking into that claim because we are saying it was not my wife's fault. I got renewal quote from Churchil for insurance 1400 pounds ( instead of 300 I paid last year) so I said I do not want to renew. Now the car tax is due so I am wondering if I can cancel that so I dont have to pay for the car standing in our drive?

I really do not know what to do now but I dont want to pay for solicitors etc. I am thinkig of going to Citizens advice bureau and ask for advice there.

I am 100% convinced it was not my wifes fault as the other drive crushed into her from the side road. Are there any companies (no win no fee type) if there was no injury?

This is just unbelievable now it seems like nobody cares.

Dizzie77

Don't you have any legal assistance cover on your insurance policy with churchills?

If not - I would definitely speak to CAB - ASAP!!!!

jarzon

No we do not have any legal cover on that. I was calling CAB all day yesterday but could not get thru. I will go there today to arange meeting.....