Is it any wonder insurance premiums are so high???

Biffa

Sorry folks, but feel the need to rant.

Had a VERY minor accident in January when I collided head on with another car at the grand speed of 15mph. To be fair, the roads around us are always clogged with idiots parking on double yellow lines on the corner of a junction. Anyway, my car suffered a broken plastic lens on the headlight and a small crack to the front bumper which you wouldn't notice if you didn't know it was there. TP vehicle suffered a dent to the bumper, which apparently moved a panel behind the bumper which perforated the radiator. This is on a P reg people carrier that was maybe worth around £1,000.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, received a phonecall the following day from TP to say that as her vehicle wouldn't pass an MOT in it's new condition, she couldn;t use it for the school runs as a childminder because of pubolic liability insurance etc etc and if I took the blame her insurance company would sort out a hire car for her.

Being the nice, kind hearted idiot that I am, I agreed on the basis that without my car, I wouldn't be able to work either. I was going faster than she was, so it was more of a 75/25 split anyway.

This was in January and as far as I'm aware it has been sorted through the insurance. I haven't had any correspondance from the insurance company about it, other than it showing on my insurance renewal in Febraury.

Two days ago, I received a letter from her solicitors asking for £5,765 to cover the cost of a hire car for 71 DAYS!!! I have forwarded it on to my insurance company for them to deal with.

My gripe is that if my insurance company settle the claim, they'll have paid out nearly £7,000 for a car that was worth maybe £1,000 to start with. And why the bl**dy hell did she need a hire car for 71 days!?? As far as I was aware, once the insurance company paid out on the orginal loss, the hire car should have been returned.

:mad:

Sorry, rant over now, so I'll return to my dark cupboard and stay there for the foreseeable future.

mattymoo

Wow, £79 a day hire car costs. Sounds like she went out and hired another people carrier.
With these types of claim, the claimant has a duty to mitigate her loss. Your insurers will probably argue that she should have had the radiator repaired / replaced and then driven her own car while the body shop waited for the parts to come in to repair the bumper etc.
She is probably being funded by Helphire or similar and insurers are used to dealing with this sort of firm.

If her insurers dealt with her car as a total loss then the usual hire period is around 28-35 days. Sufficient time for inspection / negotiation / issue of settlement cheque and chance to purchase a replacement vehicle.

dunstonh

Insurance premiums are historically very low.

pboae

I took me around 8 weeks to get the payment for my car when it was written off, and that was with me hassling the insurance co. for the money. In the meantime the poor bloke who was at fault was paying the car hire charge at a ridiculous price. But it was a condition of my insurance that I went through their associate legal company, and I couldn't buy a new car until I had the payout from the old one.

The car was worth £2,500 the hire charge was double that, but it was the other guy's insurance co that was dragging it's feet over paying out, and it is them that have the bill. I don't really see what else I could do in that situation.