£10,000 bill for hire car, insurance company will not pay.

Ebonydeluxe

Hi all,

I am really angry. Somebody hit my car back in 2008 and did not admit liability. I ended up having to settle 50/50. During the repair of the vehicle I was offered a hire vehicle, which I had for about a month. The third party insurer queried the use of the hire vehicle as I had received an injury in the accident which meant I could not drive the hire vehicle for approx 2 weeks. However, the other driver on my insurance did drive the hire vehicle during this time.

Now, over two years later I get a letter stating I am liable for the cost of the hire vehicle as the additional driver was not entitled to drive the vehicle. This just seems silly, if there are two people insured to drive a vehicle if that car is involved in an accident and a replacement car is given then obviously that person may require use of that vehicle.

From my recollection when all of this was gone through over the phone I stated that the other person would require use of the vehicle, as they had to go through the details of the insurance with me. But I cannot remember the exact conversation as it was two years ago.

What can I do? I certainly don't have £10,000 and I am already heavy in debt, I would have to declare bankruptcy. Can I fight this? Is it their error in not quering whether the other driver on the policy required use of the vehicle?

Please help, I am literally pulling my hair out.:mad::mad:

Thanks
Ebony

dacouch

Which credit hire company is it ?

How long was the hire period ?

How long were you unable to drive a vehicle ?

Was the additional driver a relation eg your partner ?

Ebonydeluxe

dacouch wrote: »

Which credit hire company is it ? Albany

How long was the hire period ? Approx 30 days

How long were you unable to drive a vehicle ? About 2 weeks

Was the additional driver a relation eg your partner ?

Partner

Thanks

dacouch

Have Albany tried taking the other Insurer to court yet ? They normally write you a letter reminding you that you signed to agree to help them in a court case.

Have they asked you for copies of your bank statements yet ? (They do this to demonstrate to the other Insurer you could not afford to just hire a vehicle off your own back)

Who is the other Insurer ? (I'm guessing Aviva or Zurich)

Are there are other cars in the household eg does your partner have his own vehicle as well as yours ?

Do you need a certain type of car eg because you have a very large family etc

mikey72

What hire car costs £2500 a week?

masterlumps

what do they want £10,000 for exactly? i would be questioning that right off - for 4 weeks car hire? im assuming you returned the car in the condition you had recieved it in and they are not actually expecting you to buy the car

Ebonydeluxe

dacouch wrote: »

Have Albany tried taking the other Insurer to court yet ? They normally write you a letter reminding you that you signed to agree to help them in a court case. To my knowledge the have not done this, they trying to say the agreement was breached because the car was driven by another driver. I don't think they are even bothering to pursue the TP insurer.

Have they asked you for copies of your bank statements yet ? (They do this to demonstrate to the other Insurer you could not afford to just hire a vehicle off your own back) They have not asked for any of this, besides the contact back in 2008 they have not had any contact with me.

Who is the other Insurer ? (I'm guessing Aviva or Zurich) I don't know who the other insurer is.

Are there are other cars in the household eg does your partner have his own vehicle as well as yours ? There are no other cars in the household.

Do you need a certain type of car eg because you have a very large family etc

When Albany called me they said I could have a like for like car as this is what my insurance specifies, I did not know this, nor did I introduce the idea and I wouldn't have known any different. I only knew what car I was actually getting when it was delivered to me.

Thanks

Ebony

Ebonydeluxe

masterlumps wrote: »

what do they want £10,000 for exactly? i would be questioning that right off - for 4 weeks car hire? im assuming you returned the car in the condition you had recieved it in and they are not actually expecting you to buy the car

The cost of the car was about £320 a day. I found this out later when the use of the car was queried.

At worst do you think I could argue that this cost is just stupid and that I will not entertain such high costs? I could buy 3 fairly good cars at the cost of their 4 weeks car hire.

Thanks
Ebony

dacouch

If you do a search of MSE or even google them you will find many many complaints, they are a shambles.

A rough guideline of a credit hire is thus, they provide a like for like hire car at a price over the going rate, you sign a credit agreement agreeing to pay them back the costs if they cannot recover them from the other Insurer (Normally with 51 weeks of the incident). If the Insurer queries the bill they sometimes end up going to court (Or threatening it). The CH company would need to demonstrate that you had a need for a car eg you were not rich enough to go out and hire a normal priced car, that you need a car and could not reasonably have walked to work etc.

I would suggest you write to Albany and ask for a copy of your entire file under a "Subject Access Report" using the data protection act http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection/your_rights/how_to_access_information.aspx Albany are entitled to charge you upto £10 for this. The chances are that Albany will have lost the contract and / or credit agreement you signed (They normally do). Which will make things very difficult for them.

Are you insured by one of the Admiral companies by any chance ?

Did your partner normally drive the car to work ?

Ebonydeluxe

dacouch wrote: »

If you do a search of MSE or even google them you will find many many complaints, they are a shambles.

A rough guideline of a credit hire is thus, they provide a like for like hire car at a price over the going rate, you sign a credit agreement agreeing to pay them back the costs if they cannot recover them from the other Insurer (Normally with 51 weeks of the incident). If the Insurer queries the bill they sometimes end up going to court (Or threatening it). The CH company would need to demonstrate that you had a need for a car eg you were not rich enough to go out and hire a normal priced car, that you need a car and could not reasonably have walked to work etc.

I would suggest you write to Albany and ask for a copy of your entire file under a "Subject Access Report" using the data protection act http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection/your_rights/how_to_access_information.aspx Albany are entitled to charge you upto £10 for this. The chances are that Albany will have lost the contract and / or credit agreement you signed (They normally do). Which will make things very difficult for them.

Are you insured by one of the Admiral companies by any chance ?

Did your partner normally drive the car to work ?

You are an angel. Thank you for taking time out to read my problem. Even if your advise does not lead to anything I at least feel like I have some hope in arguing the case and know that I am not alone in this problem. I walked into this blindly and just assumed it was all part of my insurance. I feel they misold this to me, I had no idea it was a seperate thing.

The company is Admiral.

My partner used the car more for domestic purposes if he used it for himself. But it was used to drive me to work in the time I could not manage it. Taking the kids to school and nursery, which was in two different locations with very close start and finish times, so taking public transport would not have worked.

I will do the search and see what others have said.

Thanks again.

Ebony

pickledonionspaceraider

It sounds like you are getting some fantastic advice, but I had to chip in a mo when I read £320 a day?? I work in vehicle rental and you can hire an 18 tonne truck for that price for a WEEK!
A car (like a ford focus for example) should be something like £200-250 a week