Car Hire Excess claim query

Rebeccaanne30

Hi guys
I bought an annual car hire excess policy from carhireexcess.co.uk. Unfortunately I've had to make a claim following a recent trip to Lanzarote where someone reversed into our hire car whilst it was parked in a car park. Anyway, I carefully checked the 'if you need to make a claim' section of my documents before returning the hire car as I wanted to make triple sure I had all the paperwork I needed. As well as the hire agreements, photos, receipts ect they wanted an Accident Report - I got an Incident Report which is in my view is basically the same thing (there was no detail about granularity of information requirements). Now back in the UK the insurance claims team are insisting I get a 'Damage Report' as well or my claim will not be progressed!! This was not listed on the things I needed and I don't really know what extra info it would contain anyway. I've asked Top Car rental via email and so far my request has gone unanswered.
Has anyone else has any issues with this kind of thing? The insurance company says the car hire company are legally obligated to provide one but given it was now a month ago and I have returned to England, I doubt there is much I can do if they basically either refuse or ignore my request. Shall I try and push through the insurance route as I thought I had gathered  the information that was expected?
I'm going to Madeira in a couple of weeks and am hiring a car, just contemplating buying the expensive rental car sold insurance, as this matter will no doubt be on-going and to be frank it undermines my confidence in having a standalone policy if the company makes it really hard to get your money back.

DullGreyGuy

Most excess policies will want to see evidence of the cost to fix/replace the vehicle... if you have a £1,000 excess but the damaged caused is only £500 then the hire car company should be charging you the £500 damage not the £1,000 excess. Unfortunately its common for hire car companies to just default to the full excess rather than the lower repair cost.

The insurers therefore want to double check the hire car company isnt pulling a fast one. They dont have any relationship with the hire car company and therefore have no legal basis to request the information directly. It is one of the main issues with third party insurance.

Rebeccaanne30

Thanks - they didn't actually charge me the full excess, they reviewed the damage and only charged me 327 Euro out of my the 500 excess. My Incident report states how much the charge is and all the receipts are there to back up what I paid. It just feels like the insurance firm are being deliberately awkward about it, and it's really putting me off relying on this policy for future trips.

onashoestring

Have Topcar rental already taken the excess payment from you ? 

If they have already received this payment-  there is little incentive for them to provide the damage report that you need for your insurers.