Scared and confused about credit hire/accident management

bartsimpson

I'm typing this with my wife still in tears as we just don't know what to do or where to turn.

We had an accident that 100% wasn't our fault back in Feb. Someone drove into the back of us.

Our insurer gave us 2 options:

1) Go with them, pay £550 excess and lose 13 yrs of no claims bonus
2) Go with their affiliated accident management company who would repair our car and give us a hire car, no excess, no loss of no claims bonus.

It was a no-brainer at the time and we went with 2).

We were sent a brand new 4x4 and our car was taken away for repairs. The repairs took 2 months. When we got the car back the bodywork had been done but loads of problems remained (ABS not working etc), which they said they couldn't authorise because they were not accident related.

The thing is, they absolutely were accident related as the problems didn't exist before the accident, so I paid my garage to fix the problems (£500) and started small claims court proceedings to recover this amount.

The accident management company are defending this claim as they say that they have no obligation whatsoever to repair or authorise repair of my vehicle to it's pre-accident state. That liability rests with me according to them, although they did manage to get the bodywork fixed.

I am about to send them and the court the final questionnaire about the claim, and they said I have no chance of success with my claim due to the fact that they had no obligation to repair the vehicle.

So now I don't know what to do. Added to that is the hire car charges which I found out the other day are over £17,000 and the 3rd party insurer are refusing to pay. I've been told by the accident management company that I will not be liable as long as I co-operate with them fully - but what does that even mean?

This has gone on for nearly 6 months and it has caused considerable stress to both me and my wife. We really don't know where to turn now. Do we abandon the small claim, take a £500 hit and hope that we're not liable for the hire car charges too?

My wife wants to get a solicitor/lawyer but we're concerned that their costs could be higher than the cost of losing the small claims court ruling.

Please, please help.

Thank you for reading this.

Quentin

If you lose in court you won't be able to get the court fees you will have paid to reach the hearing back off the defendant (around £100 for a £500 claim).

In addition the defendant can ask for you to pay their reasonable expenses.

You may be able to take advantage of the initial interview free scheme operated by solicitors to get an idea of your chances of winning.

As far as the credit hire is concerned, as long as you assist the company to pursue for their costs and have told the truth about the claim and your personal circs you won't have a problem.

It's not unusual for the third party to challenge the high cost of credit hire.

You have a number of threads on the go over these issues, why not just stick with one, rather than keep repeating the questions and presumably getting the advice repeated back to you?

eddddy

bartsimpson wrote: »

Our insurer gave us 2 options:

1) Go with them, pay £550 excess and lose 13 yrs of no claims bonus
2) Go with their affiliated accident management company who would repair our car and give us a hire car, no excess, no loss of no claims bonus.

It's too late now - but this was misleading/incomplete advice. Best option would have been to approach 3rd party insurer directly.

bartsimpson wrote: »

The thing is, they absolutely were accident related as the problems didn't exist before the accident, so I paid my garage to fix the problems (£500) and started small claims court proceedings to recover this amount.

The accident management company are defending this claim as they say that they have no obligation whatsoever to repair or authorise repair of my vehicle to it's pre-accident state. That liability rests with me according to them, although they did manage to get the bodywork fixed.

I am about to send them and the court the final questionnaire about the claim, and they said I have no chance of success with my claim due to the fact that they had no obligation to repair the vehicle.

It sounds like you are pursuing the wrong people. It is the 3rd party that is liable for repairs to your car caused by the accident.

Your only argument with the accident mngmt co is that they are refusing to claim from the 3rd party on your behalf (because they don't feel you have a good case to do that). So you can bypass them and claim directly from the 3rd party.

The 3rd party will pass your claim onto their insurers. They will probably ask for expert reports to back up your claim (e.g. a report from a qualified vehicle engineer.)

bartsimpson wrote: »

So now I don't know what to do. Added to that is the hire car charges which I found out the other day are over £17,000 and the 3rd party insurer are refusing to pay. I've been told by the accident management company that I will not be liable as long as I co-operate with them fully - but what does that even mean?

To heavily paraphrase, there has been a 'conversation' between the accident mgmt co and the 3rd party insurer:

Accident mgmt co: "You must pay £17k for our client's car hire"
3rd Party insurer: "No - that's a ridiculous amount"
Accident mgmt co: "Ok - we'll sue you in court"


To have a chance of winning in court, the accident mgmt co probably need you to write a statement confirming the facts, and maybe appear in court to give evidence etc, etc.

It sounds like they are saying, if you agree to do this, you wont have to pay anything, whether they win or lose.

But if you refuse to do this, they will have no case in court and will lose. So they will then expect you to pay the £17k.

(You probably agreed to this when you initially signed an agreement with the accident mgmt co.)

BertTheRaccoon

Did the accident management company get a supplementary engineer report/ opnion concerning the ABS failure which states the failure is not accident related?

What actually had to be done to repair the fault that made you £500 lighter?

Your action against the CMC is a small claims matter, so thus far you will have paid an issue fee and probably have not had to pay an allocation fee. Unless your action is deemed to be vexatious and frivolous, the odds are even if you went to a final hearing and represented yourself and lost, a judge is unlikely to sting you with the opponents costs as it is a small claims track matter.

So there is most likely the possibility that you could also ask the other side to agree to a "drop hands" approach and for you to discontinue the action with no order as to costs - that is if you want to bail out.

I can see the argument that the CMC were under no obligation to repair or authorise repairs to your vehicle and that the right of action should more be against the party at fault for the accident, as they damaged the vehicle, which caused the ABS system failure (subject to proof of this). However, at the same time, they had overall control, conduct and management of the claim at the time and surely have a duty to act responsibly. professionally and in the interest of their customer (you).

On the credit hire score, so long as you do support the hire co with replying to queries they raise and agree to go to court and say you had a need for a replacement 4x4 and agree to divuilge your bank statements to show you were unable to afford to hire out of your own pocket, there should be no comeback against you for the credit hire charges.

Quentin

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

.... Unless your action is deemed to be vexatious and frivolous, the odds are even if you went to a final hearing and represented yourself and lost, a judge is unlikely to sting you with the opponents costs as it is a small claims track matter......

Almost always the loser in a claim dealt with by the small claims court has to pay the other sides reasonable travel expenses and loss of earnings.

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/JCO/Documents/CJC/Publications/Other papers/Small Claims Guide for web FINAL.pdf

....There are reasonable travelling expenses, loss of earnings (although the amount that can be allowed for these is restricted by the court rules for the small claims track) ......

If you win a small claim, the other party will generally be ordered to reimburse these for you, but of course if you lose you may be ordered to pay the amount awarded to the successful party.

BertTheRaccoon

Quentin wrote: »

Almost always the loser in a claim dealt with by the small claims court has to pay the other sides reasonable travel expenses and loss of earnings.

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/JCO/Documents/CJC/Publications/Other papers/Small Claims Guide for web FINAL.pdf

Indeed the rules make provision for it, but in my experience a litigant in person rarely gets ordered to pay these if they lose, unless the judge has been miffed about their conduct or the case was generally without merit.

In the case in question, the claim will be against a limited company more than likely, so loss of earnings would not apply (this is usually capped at around £50.00 when applicable). I would submit any adverse costs for the OP on this case if it proceeded to trial and he lost would be minimal at best.

Quentin

The OP is concerned over the costs of losing a £500 claim.

If it gets as far as losing, then he loses all court fees, (c £100) and despite what you continue to say, can expect to pay the reasonable travel expenses of the defendant.

You say these will be minimal, but just the court costs = 20% of his claim, so it's a matter of interpretation what you mean by "minimal".

rs65

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

Indeed the rules make provision for it, but in my experience a litigant in person rarely gets ordered to pay these if they lose, unless the judge has been miffed about their conduct or the case was generally without merit.

Surely the case for repairs against the claims management company, as presented, is entirely without merit?

BertTheRaccoon

rs65 wrote: »

Surely the case for repairs against the claims management company, as presented, is entirely without merit?

it is if they have engineering evidence to support that the further work the OP paid for is not accident related (and assuming it is decent evidence with merit). Otherwise I would argue that there is an agent agreement with the CMC to "manage the repairs"

it is difficult to comment further without seeing the pleadings and the relevant paperwork though.

it is a bit flimsy, but not without foundation IMO

rs65

I get the feeling that the OP has raised an action for failing to repair the car (focusing on what was accident damage) rather than such as your earlier comment of failing to control conduct and manage the claim.

bartsimpson

I've had written confirmation from my insurer (who originally referred me to the claims management company) saying that the CMC are obliged to repair all accident-related damage as long as I have signed a credit repair agreement (which I have).

Their independent engineer says that much of the damage wasn't accident-related and thus they can't authorise repair. However my independent garage has countered this to say that the damage was most likely accident-related (in writing), and they are the only experts to have actually seen and inspected the vehicle (their engineer based their report on photos).

So I think I have a case, as long as they have an obligation to authorise repair of accident-related damage. They say they don't but my insurer says they do.

Who is correct?