caught doing car insurances job

areia

This is totally stressing me out

Last year some 14 yrs old boys stole his mothers car an audi A3 convertable and smashed and wrote off 7 cars inc his mums 6 cars were parked in a residential area, My car was written off, I had to make do with a measly £800 pay off, and I was offered a courtesy car. which I had for 4 weeks. The 3rd party are now disputing paying for the hire, Ive been asked for my bank details by the judge three months before the accident and 3 months after, wanting to know if I could of afforded a bliming hire company cheaper, Basically told them to get stuffed,

Ive got a letter on my doorstep basically telling to attend a court hearing to fight my case, please tell me whats the point of insurance.
I didnt claim for loss of earnings as im self employed gardener, I couldnt take a van for a courtesy vehicle as ive two children to get to and from school myself to hospital appointments due to me in process of finding out if i have MS, I did work but had to be super careful so I actually lost earnings.

yet im practically being threatened with the case being thrown out if I dont comply

where do i stand with this as this is really setting off the panic attacks at mo.

stator

You probably signed up for a credit based car hire. This is expensive so the insurance company are disputing it.

The court want to know if you could have afforded to hire a car and then claim the costs back from the insurance. You will have to provide this information or be in a lot of trouble.

Read the terms and conditions you signed up for the hire car. It will probably say that you have to co-operate with any information they require.
Hopefully it will say that if they can't claim the full costs from the insurance company you don't have to make up the difference yourself.

What will your bank accounts show? Lots of money or not?

Aretnap

Sounds like the hire car will have been provided for you by a credit hire firm - who give you a car on the assumption that they'll be able to claim the money from the at fault driver's insurance company on your behalf.

Basically if some numptie crashes his Audi into your vehicle, then you have the right to a replacement car at his (or his insurance company's) expense while yours is being fixed, or for a reasonable length of time to replace it if it's beyond fixing. That's right and proper.

However in turn you have a duty to keep the cost of that replacement car as reasonable as possible - you don't have a right to go and splash out just because someone else is paying. In practice that means that if you have plenty of money you would be expected to go down to your local Enterprise, hire a car, pay for it yourself and then send the receipt to the third party insurer's - because that's the cheapest way of hiring a car.

However if you're skint you won't be able to afford to do that - so you can get a car on credit hire terms instead - which is more expensive but means that there's no cost to you up front.

As part of the credit hire agreement (which you probably didn't read properly - nobody ever does) you will have agreed to assist the credit hire company in claiming for the costs from the third party insurer - which means providing details of your income and savings (as evidence that you couldn't have afforded just to go down to Enterprise and hire a car), and if necessary turning up in court to explain why you needed a car and how you couldn't afford to hire one yourself.

It's unlikely that you will actually have to attend court - these things do tend to be settled beforehand - but the fact that you told them to get stuffed the first time they asked for the information probably makes it more likely than normal.

Basically you must assist in the process. If you don't you'll be breaching the terms of the credit hire agreement, which could result in you being held liable for the costs of the car hire personally. And when you see just how big those costs are you'll realise why the third party insurer wasn't too keen to pay them.

areia

im poor thats for sure, obvs didnt read small print on phone to hire company at mo.

Just think its blimin off doing leg work when i pay for a service.

areia

yep finally got hold of hire company, it is as you say. they say it normally doesnt reach court itself but obviously mine is. Ive now got to dig out all my statements do the flaming ground work of providing evidence of cheaper car hire and prove I couldnt afford it.

The small print i focused on was looking after the hire car so i didnt get charges for damage etc.

EdGasket

What hire or claims company was it please? Might help others to know and watch out.

areia

im insuranced via city insurance, the hire place though is kindertons. city insurance have been ok when ive had any questions etc they've been pretty good, so i am happy to stay with them for time being as they've been cheapest for me last couple of years.
Just learnt another lesson in the pain in the butt world of insurance

Hoof_Hearted

Did your insurance company refer you to Kindertons? This happened in my case, another no-fault accident, and I just thought it was normal procedure. They do over-charge compared with normal hire charges. However, I didn't have any problems and everything was covered.

straighttalker

EdGasket wrote: »

What hire or claims company was it please? Might help others to know and watch out.

All credit hire companies have similar terms and conditions and requirements. Something to think about next time you decide to sign up for a shiny new hire car "at no cost to yourself"...

arcon5

It's about time these credit hire charges was disputed. Insurers talk about PI claims pushing up insurance premiums... Yet neglect these costs simply because they get kick backs from the hire firms.

And I wonder how they'd proceed if your bank statements showed you was a multi-millionaire?! No doubt the documents would disappear!

EdGasket

No I think in that case you end up footing the 'unreasonable' bill.