Third party fault accident- My car written off

lemons21

Sandtree said:

First of all lets distinguish between a courtesy car, a hire car provided by your policy and a credit hire car.

A courtesy car is one provided by the garage doing the repairs and is subject to availability. Your car is a total loss and so wouldn't be entitled to a courtesy car.

A hire car provided by your policy is an optional extra offered by some insurers. Its good because it still provides a car when yours is a total loss or stolen/unrecovered etc but the down side is that its normally for a fixed maximum number of days and so if there are delays it may have to go back before your car is ready. It doesn't appear that the OP has taken this option when they bought the insurance (or their insurer dont sell it).

That leaves credit hire which is getting a car on tick with the credit hire company recovering their outlay from the third party/their insurers. This is not provided under your insurance and its purely at the discretion of the credit hire company to decide if your's is a case they want to take on... after all its their money lost if they provide the car and it turns out the third party is uninsured and cannot afford to pay or it was a cloned vehicle and so true perpetrator is unidentified for a recovery etc.


Seems the only option they're offering is a credit hire car but that's down to that company to decide if they want to or not. If they dont you can claim things like loss of 

Thanks for clearing this up. That is really helpful information. 
I have to admit, I realise now, I did not understand the difference. The last time I made a claim (my car at the time was not written off), I was issued a courtesy car while the repairs were undertaken. This was a different insurer. 

tightauldgit

lemons21 said:

Sandtree said:

First of all lets distinguish between a courtesy car, a hire car provided by your policy and a credit hire car.

A courtesy car is one provided by the garage doing the repairs and is subject to availability. Your car is a total loss and so wouldn't be entitled to a courtesy car.

A hire car provided by your policy is an optional extra offered by some insurers. Its good because it still provides a car when yours is a total loss or stolen/unrecovered etc but the down side is that its normally for a fixed maximum number of days and so if there are delays it may have to go back before your car is ready. It doesn't appear that the OP has taken this option when they bought the insurance (or their insurer dont sell it).

That leaves credit hire which is getting a car on tick with the credit hire company recovering their outlay from the third party/their insurers. This is not provided under your insurance and its purely at the discretion of the credit hire company to decide if your's is a case they want to take on... after all its their money lost if they provide the car and it turns out the third party is uninsured and cannot afford to pay or it was a cloned vehicle and so true perpetrator is unidentified for a recovery etc.


Seems the only option they're offering is a credit hire car but that's down to that company to decide if they want to or not. If they dont you can claim things like loss of 

Thanks for clearing this up. That is really helpful information. 
I have to admit, I realise now, I did not understand the difference. The last time I made a claim (my car at the time was not written off), I was issued a courtesy car while the repairs were undertaken. This was a different insurer. 

Yeah it's important to know what you are asking for. Also be aware that your credit hire car will have to be returned 7 days after you receive your payout for your vehicle - so if your repairs are going to take longer than that you might need to arrange another alternative.

tightauldgit

Car_54 said:

lemons21 said:

As you suspected @tightauldgit they were not at all interested in other vehicles of the same age and mileage advertised for sale as evidence of the value of the vehicle. It is not something they use in their valuation assessment apparently. They would not budge on that. 

That is standard for the industry, and endorsed by the ombudsman. An exception might be where the car is very rare.
The very good reason is that adverts in Autotrader etc. show asking prices, not selling prices. Very few people pay the asking price, and some of them are wildly .optimistic.

Standard practice yes but also a BS practice if they claim to be awarding you the full market value of the vehicle and yet you can't actually replace your vehicle like for like with the payout they give you.

By contrast I've just had the 'chat' with the engineer on my current claim and the price he's come up with actually seems quite generous so there seems to be a fair amount of luck involved in what you get.  

[Deleted User]

Nobbie1967 said:

I’d check whether you are committed to the accident management company. If not, why not approach the third party insurer direct and see what they’ll offer as a cash settlement. This is what I did when someone bumped my car. Just took the money and left the dent. It’s in their interest to avoid the involvement of the Accident Management company who will just bump up costs.

It's always best to go with the 3rd party insurance first. They are motivated to keep you happy to avoid costs mounting up. Then you are in control.