Hastings Insurance - No courtosey car??

emd1987

Hi

My car was written off two days ago and Hastings Insurance are not providing me with a courtosey car as it is considered a total loss, if it was being fixed by a garage I would apparently get one, but I cannot get one even though it could take up to two weeks to process my claim. How do they expect me to get to work?

Help please!

Thanks

patchy987

sadly, this is quite normal, they will only give a courtesy car if your car is being repaired, (unless you are with certain insurers where you can pay a premium to include cover for this)

other scenario is if the accisent was not your fault then the other parties insurer may provide a car or cover any expenses you incur

emd1987

Well technically it wasn't my fault but there were no other parties involved. There was a manufacturers fault with the handbreak and my two week old car rolled down a hill into a tree!!!

As I am making a claim obviously I will have to transfer my insurance, will it now go up?

Thanks

calisto

Why on earth claim on insurance if it was the manufacturers fault? 2 week old car handbrake fault - take it up with the dealer.

Quote

OP - If your insurers pay out and don't make a recovery it's very likely that your insurance premium will increase - depending on the vehicle/cover you replace your old (new) vehicle with. Even if you have enough no claims discount (NCD) to protect this will be the case since your protection only protects the discount not the premium you pay. Most insurers will load a premium when a claim is made. If you don't protect your NCD or didn't have the opportunity to protect it then you will lose some NCD and less discount inevitably means a higher premium.

When you talk about transferring your insurance I'm not entirely sure what you mean. There would be little point in moving insurers since having made a claim it's likely you'll be liable to pay the full annual premium. A lot of what happens in the long term will be dependent on whether your insurers make a recovery from the vehicle manufacturers' insurance. In the short term it's unlikely that you'll be able to get a courtesy vehicle until an admittance of liability is obtained.

To be frank, there are so many permutations of outcome, and potential pieces of information that I could give you, but not all of them will turn out to be relevant. If I was in your situation I would be asking the place you bought the vehicle from to man up and provide you with a replacement vehicle. Otherwise it's hiring a vehicle and claiming the cost back from the manufacturers' insurance. Although without any admission of liability this might be a risky (and expensive) business.

Speak to your insurers. Demand stuff.

All the best.

withabix

Contact the manufacturer via the Dealer. See what they say.

Hire a small car (or one of the same size if you want to risk it) and write to the Dealer claiming the cost back. If necessary, give them 14 days' notice of commencing County Court action to recover the hire costs.

What car was it? How do you know that is was a fault with the car?

dogbot

Hello OP,

First off, sorry but yes it is normal that you won't get a courtesy car from your insurer in these situations. It is the accident repairer who provides the car as part of the cost of the repair. If there is no repair (i.e. total loss) they won't provide a car since they arn't getting paid!

Second - you need to talk to your insurers urgently about the claim - you want to get through to the actual file handler. Do not approach the dealer/manufacturer before you talk to the insurer since you don't want to get in the way of them making a recovery ("prejudice the claim"). If you have legal expenses they can help you with uninsured losses like additional transport costs/hire of a car IF the manufacuturer was at fault. This will probably be a complex claim to prove requiring engineers reports and the insurer will no doublt be preparing these to help them pursue their own recovery. Talk to them and get an update of what they are doing - they may have found that in fact there is no hope of recovery, and if so you don't want to get stuck with the costs of a hire car (or worst a credit hire car).

If you take acction for your uninsured losses with out considering the insurers losses then you prejudice their chance to recover the money - their claim is, in fact, YOUR claim (they have subrogation rights - to stand in your shoes and make a recovery).