Courtesy Car - mis-sold policy?

SteveBentley

This might be a long shot... I bought a comprehensive policy which has a "Guaranteed Courtesy Car" as part of it. Following an accident it turns out that the courtesy car is only available while the car is being repaired.

Which sounds reasonable until you find out that their definition of being repaired and mine differ considerably. I felt that once the repair company had collected the car it was reasonable to consider it away for repair. Not so - the insurance company only consider it as being repaired once their engineer has bothered to get himself down to the garage (2 days after it was collected) to decide whether it is repairable or a write off. If it is a write off, as mine was, you don't get a courtesy car. Common sense would suggest that a courtesy car until you get the settlement cheque or at least for a few days to enable you get around the showrooms to find a new car would be reasonable.

So in effect, this additional level of cover is totally worthless for the intention of ensuring that you're not off the road if you have a prang, so I wonder whether there's some sort of claim for the policy having being mis-sold? Does anyone have any advice on whether it's worth persuing this and how to go about it?


Cheers

Steve

mattymoo

The thing with courtesy cars is they are supplied by the garage usually at no charge to the insurers (although I'm sure they cover it in their labour rates).
Once the garage knows the car is a write off, it has no interest in supplying you with a courtesy car because it knows it is not going to get the repair work.

This is pretty much standard across the board and will be detailed in the policy booklet. Insurers offer a 14 day cooling off period. This is to enable you to check the policy cover and cancel if it is not what you expected.

Every major insurers uses a "what we pay for" and "what we don't pay for" format these days so it is certainly not buried in the small print.

For the above reasons, I suspect you will not succeed in any claim for miss sellling.

ioscorpio

Not sure about mis-selling, did you read the small print?

If it is a non-fault accident, I know an accident management co who could sort you out with a hire car

SteveBentley

I don't see anything in the small print which defines "while it is being repaired" as including "while you're waiting for somebody to decide if it's fixable or not". I just feel a bit annoyed that this "guaranteed courtesy car" is a big selling point on the policy and turns out to be utterly useless.

Thanks for the advice, I guess I'm probably wasting my time chasing this further.

gazza975526570

In my experience there will be no mention at all in your policy regards a courtesy car. As such its just an extra you get out of courtesy by the repairing garage

vikingaero

There's an article on p64 of this weeks Auto Express titled:

Courtesy car confusion

"If your vehicle is stolen or written off, it's unlikely your cover will include a free loaner. Research by Marks and Spencer Money found only one in five policies included this as standard."

"The RAC added: "A courtesy car will rarely be provided if a car is a total loss. If it's stolen, garages will often refuse to provide a replacement until it is found and repair work started.""

"If in doubt check the small print on your manufacturer warranty, as well as your insurance policy, before you hand any cash to your dealer."

dunstonh

Did you buy the policy or did you go to a broker for advice and was recommended this car insurance policy? If you told your broker you wanted policy with a car and your broker said you would get one and sold this policy then that could be a mis-sale. If you bought the policy online then you get what you are given as you are taking the role of the adviser. You can complain to yourself in this situation

Most providers will not include a courtesy car if your car is a write off.

There is an assumption that all policies are the same but that is not the case.