Car Insurance - Without Drive Assist!

MNG

Hi,

I have arranged for DriveAssisst to deliver a hire car tomorrow to the BMW bodyshop where my car's rear bumper is being replaced.

Basically my car was hit in the rear bumper in May 2010 and it turned out that although the other vehicle was insured, the drive himself wasn't. It took some 3 months for my insurance company (Llyods TSB) to get admission of liability from the other company.

Finally once this was done, the offered me to get a repair done through UK Assisstance. I declined and asked for it to be repaired by the main dealer. They agreed.

Now they said I can get a hire car from DA. I didn't know the credentials of DA nor the fact that it is a credit hire agreement.

What do you suggest I do? Should I cancel the DA car booked in for tomorrow. Looking at the DA charges, I am scared as they have said I will get a prestige car (BMW, Jag or Merc). If they are unable to recover the money from the other party's insurance, I can end up with a bill for thousands. Plus their reputation for charging for alleged damages.

I do have a guaranteed courtesy car on my policy with Llyods. However, BMW has a waiting time of 2 weeks for this. I am happy to wait, the only problem is my insurance is due for renewal in 4 days time and I was planning to say good bye to Llyods.

Please help

Mellamolin

After dealing with Drive Assist once, I would never, ever, ever entertain them again! If you already have the car, I would get them to collect it asap - and take photos of every bit of the car before you return it to prove it's condition!

If you need a car, then personally I would hire one privately - or you could ask drive assist for their cheapest car available just so that you have wheels and you can limited the financial damage if it goes wrong! Make sure you keep all documents, photos etc and I would record their conversations if you can.

I'm sure other people have had no trouble with them whatsoever and these forums are mainly full of people with complaints. Better forewarned though eh? good luck with the car and the claim x

HuckingFell_2

Hi, after some help on dealing with Drive Assist, I'll be as short as I can.

I had an accident back in June, 3rd party drove into my passenger side on a traffic light controlled cross roads. No witness, my story that I went through just as it changed to amber, insurance company (Aviva) said they where confident but not 100%. After speaking to Aviva, they said I would be contacted by DA to arrange a car, which I assumed was a courtesy car as having one was part of my policy. Having never heard of them I thought great. Spoke to adviser who said they'd be able to provide a car, he then went through his speech, but I never remember being told i would be responsible for any charges and wasn't offered the £10 waiver. Had the car for 28days.

I've now received 2 letters with the statement of truth to be signed and returned, I've not yet done so. The accident has now gone down as my fault (due to a witness that was apparently at the scene, he wasn't :mad:), it was never going to be any better than 50/50 in mine and many other peoples opinions.

I spoke to DA today and was informed that I may not have to pay the charges if they feel they wrongly took the case on. The total hire figure is £1,800 which I just don't have.

In hindsight I would never have accepted a car from DA as I'd never even heard of a credit agreement, very naive I know.

I'm going to speak to Aviva and see where I stand with them but from reading through the thread assume it will be no where!

So after some hints on what to do now??

Bar_Hunter

I am in a similar position, my insurance company have contacted Drive Assist to supply a replacement vehicle whilst repairs are carried out...

But I have to say I'm not feeling too confident about them after reading this thread and also this about Drive Assist.

I contacted my insurance company who say I don't have a choice of who supplies the car as in this instance the third-party insurer also has an agreement with Drive Assist(?!). If I had legal cover, I could have privately hired a vehicle and billed it to the third-party!

Instead my insurers told me to take "before"and "after" photo's!!

I even opted for the £4 a day waiver yet when I phoned to chase up delivery, after not hearing from their "depot" I was told I have not taken out any CDW despite having provided my payment details and been told it has.

Then they apparantly emailed me....but not to my email address!!

We can all say that what we will see on forum such as these are going to be complaints etc, and not the good stuff said about a company, but when the level of complaints is so high, it cannot be ignored.

A few have mentioned above about the £10 excess waiver, I take it this is in case the third-party refuses to pay, whereby you would be covered for the credit-hire charges, but does Drive Assist really offer this? It certainly wasn't offered to me at all!

It's got to be said, first impressions of this company are not good!!

dacouch

I think your Insurers are miss leading you, the other Insurer are not likely to have an agreement with DA apart from the ABI agreed hire rates between Credit Hire Companies and Insurers which fixes a maximum amount per class of vehicle they will pay.

If you do not want to use DA simply ring the other Insurer (If you need help on finding their telephone number etc we can advise you how to get this in moments) and they will provide a like for like car at there cost with no dispute over paying for it. They will be glad you have cut DA out of the equation as their hire charges are well above what the Insurer will pay

Bar_Hunter

dacouch wrote: »

I think your Insurers are miss leading you, the other Insurer are not likely to have an agreement with DA apart from the ABI agreed hire rates between Credit Hire Companies and Insurers which fixes a maximum amount per class of vehicle they will pay.

If you do not want to use DA simply ring the other Insurer (If you need help on finding their telephone number etc we can advise you how to get this in moments) and they will provide a like for like car at there cost with no dispute over paying for it. They will be glad you have cut DA out of the equation as their hire charges are well above what the Insurer will pay

I've got the details for the third party insurers, what puts me off from contacting them is the fact that they took a very active stance in contacting me, totally bypassed my insurance company and wrongly informed them that I was dealing with the third-party directly and that my insurers could close the case...then further lies and allegations followed!

I have hence been advised not to deal with the third party insurers, and also declinded the DA vehicle, I telephoned them 5 times to do so, and was cut off every time. Not a good indication of how the company is run, neither did they call to confirm vehicle delivery details.

How much of an option is the private hire route in this case? I have been told by my insurers I could only do so if I had legal cover (which I don't). Otherwise I don't see any other way of getting a replacement vehicle whilst mine is being repaired, unless the garage loans me one, which strangely enough they don't appear very happy about.

Thanks again.

dacouch

The people who are advising you not to contact the third party are DA who obviously have a vested interest and I guess also your Insurers whose vested interest is the circa £300 commission DA will be paying them if you have a car.

It's very easy to ring the other Insurer, you will be surprised how easily they will arrange a car for you at their cost. Have a look back at some of the other fairly recent posts on this thread where other MSE members have been in a similar position and just run the other Insurer who are very happy to cut DA out as it saves them large amounts of money.

If you really want to hire a car, you could ring the other Insurers and explain you are hiring car x and price x will they agree to refund your costs. They will be happy to although you may as well just get them to arrange the whole car hire and let them pay.

Bar_Hunter

Its the solicitors (who incidentally have nothing to do with my insurance company or DA) who advised me not to approach the third party insurers directly.

I can't see an easy way of getting a car without using DA, which I would absolutely want to avoid.

A_B_2

My car insurance is up for renewal in Jan so I thought I'd revisit this thread to see if there was an answer yet - to if you can go with an insurer who does not use DA. I see since I last posted on here in July that nothing has changed and DA are still up to their old tricks!

Mellamolin - if you find out how long a company is allowed to get away with this please let me know! Just over 2 years have passed since another driver hit me and wrote my car off and I am still having hassle from it!! ARGH! Has all been quiet for the past 3 months, I doubt they have gone away though!!

JOHN1982

Good morning all,

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I've got a feeling I'm heading for a run-in with Drive Assist as well! I had an accident last year and it looks like it's heading for 50/50 split liability.

I'm just wondering though, I paid extra for hire car cover (up to 21 days) through my insurance premium and it's on my policy. Does this protect me at all ... or am I going to be in for a fight?

*EDIT*
Oh, and I wasn't there when they picked up the vehicle, I was told to leave the keys with the repairing garage. Thus I didn't sign the vehicle back in!