Car Hire "Insurances"

PeacefulWaters

Policy document

Section 10 covers claim requirements.

aaj123

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Policy document

Section 10 covers claim requirements.

Yep read this but my question stands. Section 10 does not require the hirer to dispute or even question the claim. All it says is to provide the documentation / invoice from the car hire firm to the claim handler.

So my point is that the car hire firm could make any claim and the hirer will just pass on the charge / documentation to claim handler without bothering to dispute.

Unless all of this affects premiums on my domestic care insurance renewal - which is why I had asked the other question in my earlier post. As that would indeed incentivise the hirer to dispute claims if they feel it is not genuine.

AlexMac

A major problem seems to be that the staff at the carhire checkout desks (especially those from dodgy company brands you've never heard off, but also some mainstream ones) are under real pressure to sell chargeable extras because most of us go for the cheapest quotes, often via online brokers, with very low margins for the local operator.

My experience at malaga airport last year reflected this; my mate had booked online (not with my favourite trusted Manchester-based broker https://www.carhire3000), and we had annual multi-trip excess cover, but the local desk staff were so desperate to sell that they were threateningly aggressive. The deal seemed to be " buy our overpriced cover or we'll keep you waiting hours on return while we find some damage... or buy our crepe daily rate deal and you can toss the keys in a box even if the car's a smoking wreck..."

As I've got more front than Brighton we stuck to our ground, but the resultant arguments with every punter meant there was a 2-hour queue for cars.

Strangely enough, when we returned, the staff by then had no commission-led incentive to be nasty, so were nice as ninepence to us!

But it taught me to stick with my old favourite broker, above, with the added benefit (in Spanish rentals at least) that the fuel policy is spelled out on the 1st page of search results (full-out/ empty back or full/full) so you can avoid that rip off too

zagfles

aaj123 wrote: »

Yep read this but my question stands. Section 10 does not require the hirer to dispute or even question the claim. All it says is to provide the documentation / invoice from the car hire firm to the claim handler.

So my point is that the car hire firm could make any claim and the hirer will just pass on the charge / documentation to claim handler without bothering to dispute.

You don't need to tell the car hire company that you have third party excess cover, in fact I think it's best not to for this reason.

Unless all of this affects premiums on my domestic care insurance renewal - which is why I had asked the other question in my earlier post. As that would indeed incentivise the hirer to dispute claims if they feel it is not genuine.

You would have to declare it to your insurer but you'd also need to declare anything which happened if you got SCDW from the car hire company. If you've got a good no-claims a one off incident especially minor probably wouldn't affect the renewal much.

aaj123

zagfles wrote: »

You don't need to tell the car hire company that you have third party excess cover, in fact I think it's best not to for this reason.

Thanks. Makes sense.

Btw I just ferreted out the below from the Questor policy wording as regards role of the hirer in respect of a claim:

3. All certificates, information and evidence required by our appointed claim handlers shall be provided at Your expense.
4. Except with our written consent, you are not entitled to admit liability on our behalf or to give any representations or other undertakings binding upon us. We shall be entitled to the absolute conduct, control and settlement of all proceedings arising out of or in connection with claims in your name.
5. We may at our own expense take proceedings in your name to recover compensation from any third party in respect of any reimbursement made under this Insurance and any amounts recovered shall belong to us. You agree to provide reasonable assistance to us to recover such amounts.

ic

opinions4u wrote: »

What other insurances / fees are they likely to throw at me?

When you hand over your credit card be sure to ask them to charge you in euros. Virtually all transactions (certainly in Spain) will offer you the choice, but so many companies will automatically select the option to charge in GBP (i.e. their own high conversion rate) rather than allow you to choose. I've had restaurants, shops and car hire companies do it. I'd always assumed if I didn't see the question, I'd been charged in euros - not the case.

I was also caught out at the car hire desk as their paper work tucked the currency used for all the values on the sheet away in the small print - so if you see values listed as "57.00" instead of "57.00 EUR" or "57.00 GBP" let the alarm bells ring and ask what currency your card is being billed in.