Excess Insurance - remember to read the small print or learn the hard way and end up paying £1,750!!

sfblues11

Following MSE advise I've always bought separate Excess Insurance if I'm planning to hire a car abroad.  I've never needed to make a claim until.........
My daughter wanted to hire a van to move some of her things home, within the UK.  So being a dutiful dad I hired it (from Enterprise) and drove to her place and back.  I was offered a free upgrade to a larger van.  The agent said it would be helping him if I did so, as they were short of the van I'd hired, so I agreed. 
I'd declined the Enterprise Excess Insurance as I'd recently bought a policy from Eversure, via the MSE link, so thought I didn't need it.  All went well until 200 yards from home, after a 400 mile return trip, I scratched the back of the van turning into a lane (big van, turning in the dark).  Although annoyed, it didn't look too bad.  Before travelling, I'd checked the Eversure policy to make sure applied to UK hires (it did) but checked no further. So when I checked the policy more fully before returning the van the following morning, my heart sunk, as I read in the policy exclusions - 'if the hire vehicle is not a car'.
It meant that as I'd hired a van, not a car, the Eversure policy didn't apply! 
A very sobering lesson for me to read the policy small print BEFORE hiring.  As a result, although the scratches were only a small area at the rear of the van I've had to pay the £1,750 excess until the repair is actually carried out, when hopefully I will get some of that back.  However, Enterprise couldn't tell me when this would be, so they're still holding the full £1,750 for however long it takes.
I'm about to hire a car in Oman for next month, so I'll make sure I get a car and also read the small print - an expensive lesson learnt! !

eDicky

Regardless that there's no cover with your separate insurance, you could request an invoice for repair, as if for insurance purpose. Otherwise you might wait a long time for a refund on the excess amount, if they ever actually bother to repair a minor scratch.

DullGreyGuy

sfblues11 said:
I'll make sure I get a car and also read the small print - an expensive lesson learnt! !

In fairness to Eversure the product is called "Car Hire Excess Insurance" both online and in the policybook's front cover... it didnt need to read all the small print to raise the fact there is a potential issue with a Van Hire on a Car Hire Excess Insurance.

Certainly keep on top of Enterprise, with the money gone its easy to let it slip from memory but they can only charge for their losses up to the excess.

sfblues11

I'm not blaming Eversure for my mistake - I accept I made an assumption that it would also include van hire without checking.  I posted this as an example of what I did (and others may do) when in a hurry, and not bothering to check the policy.
Thanks for the advice to keep on top of Enterprise, rather than let it drift.

sfblues11

As an update, to follow up on the advice above, I rang the local office in Cardiff and eventually spoke to Jack who said the Damage Recovery team had recently changed their contact details, so he would find it and ring me back the same afternoon (he didn't).
I then submitted an email to their customer support team.  That was about a week ago and no reply so far :0(

SaverRate

sfblues11 said:

As an update, to follow up on the advice above, I rang the local office in Cardiff and eventually spoke to Jack who said the Damage Recovery team had recently changed their contact details, so he would find it and ring me back the same afternoon (he didn't).
I then submitted an email to their customer support team.  That was about a week ago and no reply so far :0(

Time for a complaint? There is a live chat service on their website that may help?