Car Insurance

cyberem78

I had an accident and the other party admitted liability immediately to their own insurers. I had already called my insurance company who said I wouldn't have to pay any excess and they'd organise repairs for me. They then passed my details on to an accident management company.

However, when I said I didn't want a courtesy car they said I'd have to pay £150 excess by 'turning down' their approved repair service.

I have also had an offer from the other parties insurance for same service of repairs/courtesy car. I am cautious about taking a courtesy car in case the other insurance company won't pay and they come after me with a bill.

Any advice would be appreciated.

InsideInsurance

If you claim direct from the other party's insurance then there will be no issues as they authorise everything up front.

You also need to distinguish between a courtesy car and a hire car. The former is given by a garage free of charge (its built into the labour rate) where as the other has a discrete charge.

cyberem78

Thanks, have gone with the 3rd party insurance without having to be forced to take a car which they were calling a 'hire car'.

InsideInsurance

cyberem78 wrote: »

Thanks, have gone with the 3rd party insurance without having to be forced to take a car which they were calling a 'hire car'.

You wouldnt be forced to take a hire car from the TPI as they're the ones paying for it so will be happy if you dont take one.

You could put in a claim for loss of use of your vehicle @ 10 per day if you wanted and it shouldnt be challenged as itll be less than a hire car is unless you have a 1.1L or smaller car.

Unless you failed to surrender the hire car when instructed to you wouldnt be billed for the hire car by the TPI because its a direct billing arrangement (though you then cant claim loss of use). In all my claims years I only had one case where we attempted to recover any direct hire charges from a TP and that was because they disappeared on holiday for 3 weeks without telling us and we instructed them to return the hire car about 2 days into it so incurred an extra 19 days hire (the repair had only taken 3 days)

The Accident Management company will have insisted your use of a credit hire car because outside of injury this is their largest money spinner as for what an insurer pays 10 a day for on direct instruction, credit hire charges them 35+