Car in accident last week. Need to get to airport next week but apparently cannot take courtesy car? 28 March 2022 at 6:19PM in Insurance & life assurance 9 replies 396 views

Serengetisnow

Hello,
On Thursday evening someone ran into the back of my husband's Skoda estate (he was stationary with hazards on as someone had just gone off the road and run into a tree on the other side of the small country road. Someone far behind him didn't see and ran into the back of the car at speed). We have been offered a courtesy car which is great. However, they have said we cannot take the courtesy car to the airport and park it there. This is a problem as we were planning on using the car to get to Heathrow this weekend and were parking in their short stay for a week. The insurance have said we can put in a claim for alternate transport and that this may or may not be paid. Please does anyone have an experience of this? We will be travelling with 2 small children, one of which needs to be carried so with him  and all the luggage/ buggy/ car seat for the car we are hiring when we reach our destination public transport is going to be challenging and we may need to hire an airport taxi which will be expensive. Many thanks

Grumpy_chap

Serengetisnow said:

Hello,
On Thursday evening someone ran into the back of my husband's Skoda estate (he was stationary with hazards on as someone had just gone off the road and run into a tree on the other side of the small country road. Someone far behind him didn't see and ran into the back of the car at speed). We have been offered a courtesy car which is great. However, they have said we cannot take the courtesy car to the airport and park it there. This is a problem as we were planning on using the car to get to Heathrow this weekend and were parking in their short stay for a week. The insurance have said we can put in a claim for alternate transport and that this may or may not be paid. Please does anyone have an experience of this? We will be travelling with 2 small children, one of which needs to be carried so with him  and all the luggage/ buggy/ car seat for the car we are hiring when we reach our destination public transport is going to be challenging and we may need to hire an airport taxi which will be expensive. Many thanks

How long do you expect it to take for the Skoda to be repaired?
How long will you be away for?
Is the issue that the courtesy car company expect the repair complete before you are back and not agreeable to the extended hire?
What prompted you to ask what you could use the courtesy car for?
Is it possible that the hire company did not understand the question and thought you proposed to take the car out of the country?

Serengetisnow

Many thanks for the reply! In the very long Ts and Cs they wanted us to sign for the courtesy car it says that it cannot be parked at airports and we cannot keep it if we are on holiday, even if our own car is not repaired. So we thought we should ask the question as we didn't want to violate the agreement. I can't imagine our own car will be back- it was only collected from where the police took it after the accident today and we are only away for a week. When we checked both the insurers (Admiral) and the courtesy car hire firm (Auxillis) said we couldn't park the car at the airport and they were unsure what to advise. In the end they said maybe the claim would pay for alternate transport. It all sounds a bit odd!

jimbo6977

The idea is that you take some kind of reasonable alternative transport to the airport and claim the difference in cost between that and what would have been your fuel/parking costs from the liable party. 

TELLIT01

Unless you have friends with a car large enough for yourselves and your luggage, the most practical option will be airport transfers.  When you book, make sure they know the ages of the children as they will probably need child seats or boosters.

Auxillis

Hi Serengetisnow

Could you please email [email protected] with your Auxillis reference number, so we can identify your case and arrange for you to be contacted directly to discuss this further?

Kind Regards,

Auxillis Online Team

rigolith

jimbo6977 said:

The idea is that you take some kind of reasonable alternative transport to the airport and claim the difference in cost between that and what would have been your fuel/parking costs from the liable party. 

Yeah, the thing to remember is that you must minimise your costs. The danger is that they will argue you could have taken public transport and refuse to pay out. It's then down to convincing the ombudsman that you needed to get a taxi.

Sandtree

rigolith said:

jimbo6977 said:

The idea is that you take some kind of reasonable alternative transport to the airport and claim the difference in cost between that and what would have been your fuel/parking costs from the liable party. 

Yeah, the thing to remember is that you must minimise your costs. The danger is that they will argue you could have taken public transport and refuse to pay out. It's then down to convincing the ombudsman that you needed to get a taxi.

They are claiming from the third party, you have no ombudsman rights. If they won't pay and you dont agree then its the courts to opine not FOS.

I would assume 99.9% would have just driving the car to the airport, park it in the short term bay and not even have thought to check with the credit hire company. I'd be surprised if they did have any issues with it (or a way of finding out) where you remain in control of the keys at all times... clearly a different kettle of fish when you give the keys over to a third party.

eddddy

Serengetisnow said:

However, they have said we cannot take the courtesy car to the airport and park it there. 

Is it because leaving the car in an airport car park unused for a week clearly shows that you didn't really need the car for that week, so it's unreasonable to try to recover the car hire cost from the other party, as it was an unnecessary cost?

Initially, I guess you could not mention to anyone that the car was in an airport car park for a week.

But if the other party decides to challenge an extortionate credit hire charge in court, you might have to give evidence to demonstrate that you needed the hire car.

The court might decide that the other party doesn't have to pay for that week - and since you breached the car hire T&Cs, you become liable for the hire cost.

Serengetisnow said:

The insurance have said we can put in a claim for alternate transport and that this may or may not be paid.

I suspect they didn't want to commit themselves to anything over the phone. If you hand back the hire car for a week, it seems reasonable to pay your alternative transport costs. (It would probably be cheaper than the cost of a hire car for a week.)

jimbo6977

rigolith said:

jimbo6977 said:

The idea is that you take some kind of reasonable alternative transport to the airport and claim the difference in cost between that and what would have been your fuel/parking costs from the liable party. 

Yeah, the thing to remember is that you must minimise your costs. The danger is that they will argue you could have taken public transport and refuse to pay out. It's then down to convincing the ombudsman that you needed to get a taxi.

Agreed.

The reasonableness of any alternative would depend on the locations involved and the options available.