Should I claim on my policy or wait for the credit car hire company to sort out the liability?

kh00488 · 12 May 2020 at 4:35PM

Hi all, I really need your advice! I was too naive when I dealt with the issue. I have already learnt a lesson. And, sorry for a long text in advance! Questions I want to ask probably is more than just: 'Should I claim on my policy or wait for the credit car hire company to sort out the liability?'

In brief, I was involved in not at fault incident 3 months ago. Admiral passed me to its accident management company, Auxillis. My car was then written off and collected by a car salvage agent. I accepted the car valuation Auxillis offered and I thought it meant the TP had already accepted the fault so I just need to wait for the payment. I was also offered credit car hire by them and yes, I did read the T&C in the 3 documents that they sent me but it didn't mention the liability would be on me if the TP doesnt pay. The total cost of credit car hire is 60GBP/day + 80GBP collection and delivery fee + ~5.5 GBP high risk group daily charge . Although the collection and delivery fee is quite high, 60GBP/day for the car seems to be ok for my age group (21 year old student). Plus, I called them and reassured that I was not responsible to pay for the costs every time I called them. So, I signed the credit car hire agreement. However, I felt suspicious about it when I was asked to fill in an accident description form and diagram by Auxillis after all these. I started doing my research and found out how these companies work. So, I realised that I would need to pay if the liability is not on the TP at the end. So I returned the car a week ago (total cost for the credit car hire added up to ~3000GBP) The most ridiculous thing was, 4 other new documents about liability showed up on the Auxillis customer portal after I returned the car. I never seen these documents before and the 'date of production' of these docs shown on the portal was before/ the same day I received the credit car hire agreements. It is ridiculous.

question about how to get the payment that Auxillis quoted for my car (car valuation Auxillis provided me)
1. Should I claim on my policy or wait for the credit car hire company to sort out the liability? The car valuation provided by Auxillis is not yet accepted by Admiral yet and Admiral will decide how much they will pay me after they have a look of the engineer report. Claiming on my policy will result in ~30% loss of my original car valuation (given by Auxillis)after deducting the excess of my policy. So, i dont know whether it is worth doing it. if I want to claim the excess back from TP, I will need to find a solicitor to work on it and this will add another cost on me. If I wait for Auxillis to sort the liability out and it turns out the liability is 50/50, will I lose half of the original car valuation and will I need to pay half of the credit car hire cost? I dont have witnesses and CCTV videos but only photos of my damaged car, TP contact details.

About Auxillis credit car hire cost
1. If I end up paying the credit car hire cost, can I complain to FOS or sue them?
I have several recordings of the conversation between Auxillis and me. I recorded them saying I wont be responsible for the cost in ANY CASES. Will that be a strong evidence for FOS to prove Auxillis is misleading their clients? Regarding the documents they 'forgot' to upload before i signed the agreement, unfortunately, I didn't take a screenshot of the portal on the day I signed the agreement but I have a record of dates that I downloaded these files. Just in case I misunderstood the T&Cs in the agreements, I also sent an email with a copy of the agreement to my close friend to have a look before I signed the agreement. If I am that fussy about it, why would I not notice the 'other' documents that Auxillis uploaded 'on the same day' they uploaded the agreement? Can I defend myself like this when I make a complain about Auxillis to FOS?

Many thanks to you all!!