CDW Excess for third party

rockettheatre

Really hope someone can help.

I have hired a car in the UK and didn't buy their excess insurance. I did however purchase CDW excess annual cover from another company - as recommended by this website.

I have had a small scrape and as well as damaging the hire car I also damaged my next door neighbours car.

I have had to pay the excess (£1250) to the car hire company and thought that I could claim the excess from the insurance that I took out. They tell me, however, that I can claim the excess for the damage to the hire vehicle but not for the portion that would be any excess for the damage to the third party vehicle.

Is this normal? Is there no way of completely reducing the risk to £0 through insurance? The damage to the third party car is actually much more than the hire vehicle, so it seems like the insurance was a waste of time!

InsideInsurance

Certainly buying their own CDW would have meant nothing was payable.

You need to check the details of both your hire contract and hire car insurance you bought. In none hire situations the excess only is paid towards damages of your own vehicle and nothing is paid towards the TP's damage by you, a contract for hire however possibly could be different but I would closely read the terms as there are issues with having an excess towards third party damage

marlot

There isn't normally any excess to pay on third party claims.

99% sure you're being advised wrongly by a junior employee.

I have a 1% doubt - have hire companies have found a new way to fleece hirers?

Aretnap

Have you asked how much of the £1250 actually applies to the third party claim?

Maybe the person on the phone was just saying that IF any of it is a third party excess it wouldn't be covered? Not that any of it actually is?

arcon5

Excess for TP repairs? Nah, that's not how insurance works. Their insurer will pay out the TP and you pay the excess for damage to their vehicle. This is exactly why you have insurance, to indemify you if you bring harm to others through your negligence.

rockettheatre

Thanks everyone. Seems you are right. Have now got to the bottom of this and found that the company told me the wrong information which almost cost me several hundred pounds. Glad I dug around a bit now! How can they be so incompetent? Sigh!

Joe_Horner

rockettheatre wrote: »

How can they be so incompetent? Sigh!

Incompetent?

For every customer who digs around a bit they'll have a dozen who just accept a reduced payout. That's easily worth having to apologise for giving wrong info to te ones who check.

If your business is making money (which is what insurers do) that may be a lot of tings but it's not incompetent

InsideInsurance

Joe_Horner wrote: »

If your business is making money (which is what insurers do) that may be a lot of tings but it's not incompetent

Most big hire car companies deal with the claims themselves and not with their insurers or have created a captive insurer/ reinsurer and so are on the hook anyway.

I saw one multinational policy which effectively had a $2m excess (though capped at $100m per year) which was for first and third party losses.

Joe_Horner

Agreed for the hire company but not for the third party CDW cover, who are the ones who appear to have accidentally (!!!) misled the OP

arcon5

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Incompetent?

For every customer who digs around a bit they'll have a dozen who just accept a reduced payout. That's easily worth having to apologise for giving wrong info to te ones who check.

If your business is making money (which is what insurers do) that may be a lot of tings but it's not incompetent

If not incompetent, then i'd say using false information as such to make financial gains is nothing less than Fraud by Misrepresentation.

Being in business to make money doesn't have to involve complete incompetence in dealing with core services or fraud.

InsideInsurance

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Agreed for the hire company but not for the third party CDW cover, who are the ones who appear to have accidentally (!!!) misled the OP

Its not clear from the message if its the hire car or CDW provider that have admitted they made the mistake. As others have pointed out, an excess wouldnt normally be paid towards the TP element of the claim.