No fault claim - should I let my insurance deal or go direct to theirs

Metalgiraffe

Got hit by another motorist who has admitted full liability. I called my insurers who immediately set in motion car hire and garage pick up, (I won't lose NCD).  The other party insurance phoned me and offered to do the same with a £200 reward if I go direct through them.
Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using my own insurance to deal with the claim?

DullGreyGuy

First of all... are you actually going through your insurance or have they passed you off to an accident management company? Admiral Group for example would have referred you to Auxillis.

The key advantage of using your own insurance (but not an accident management company) is if something goes wrong you can complain and take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman which you cannot do if dealing with a third party insurer.

The key advantage of claiming from the third party insurer (ignoring the bribe) is you know there wont be a future dispute over if the hire car charges were reasonable or not etc and whilst you'd almost never personally become liable it can be a fair amount of time to resolve it. 

Metalgiraffe

Thanks, its LV insurance and they are dealing with it. I was concerned that third party would argue car hire charges as they say they only allow very low daily rate of about £26, but Enterprise, which both insurers use, don't have anything that low anyway.  

DullGreyGuy

Metalgiraffe said:

Thanks, its LV insurance and they are dealing with it. I was concerned that third party would argue car hire charges as they say they only allow very low daily rate of about £26, but Enterprise, which both insurers use, don't have anything that low anyway.  

If its given under the terms of your policy then the hire car is unlikely to be an issue.

Insurers do refer people to Credit Hire companies (which Enterprise also operate) rather than under the terms of the policy and thats when disputes happen. Some limit it to cases where people mention needing a more appropriate vehicle than a 3 door small car and others more wide spread. 

If we gave you a car under your policy both firms we used to use charged us about £9/day for a Corsa type vehicle. Under the Credit Hire scheme that identical car would cost circa £48/day (inc VAT). There are companies that operate outside of the ABI GTA and their charges were even more (for illustration purposes the GTA rate for a BMW 320 is £126+vat whereas one non-GTA credit hire used to charge circa £200 + vate)

Metalgiraffe

That's really helpful and put my mind at ease thank you.  I'm going to stick with my insurers to deal on my behalf.

Mutton_Geoff

Not sure why people get screwed with this low budget loan car thing. My car was damaged by another driver and I insisted on a similar quality performance car whilst mine was being repaired and this was charged as uninsured losses against the other drivers insurance.

EssexExile

LV= were very good when we were in this situation recently.

DullGreyGuy

Mutton_Geoff said:

Not sure why people get screwed with this low budget loan car thing. My car was damaged by another driver and I insisted on a similar quality performance car whilst mine was being repaired and this was charged as uninsured losses against the other drivers insurance.

You have a legal obligation to mitigate your losses and there are many stories of crazy credit hire bills... in a rather infamous case, the third party was still in the hire car at the time of the court hearing with the bill to that date being over £400,000, over 2.5 years after the accident

Mutton_Geoff

DullGreyGuy said:

You have a legal obligation to mitigate your losses and there are many stories of crazy credit hire bills... in a rather infamous case, the third party was still in the hire car at the time of the court hearing with the bill to that date being over £400,000, over 2.5 years after the accident

Absolutely. But similarly, there is no reason to expect a Bentley* owner should be driving around in a budget rental car whilst theirs is being repaired. Mitigating is not the same as minimising.

* - substitute your preferred expensive brand of car here

DullGreyGuy

Mutton_Geoff said:

DullGreyGuy said:

You have a legal obligation to mitigate your losses and there are many stories of crazy credit hire bills... in a rather infamous case, the third party was still in the hire car at the time of the court hearing with the bill to that date being over £400,000, over 2.5 years after the accident

Absolutely. But similarly, there is no reason to expect a Bentley* owner should be driving around in a budget rental car whilst theirs is being repaired. Mitigating is not the same as minimising.

Thats pretty much exactly what mitigating means... reasonable action to minimize losses https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/commentary/halsburys-laws-of-england/damages/claimant-s-duty-to-mitigate-loss

Ultimately its down to a judge to determine what is reasonable. If it reasonable for a Bentley driver to have to drive around in a Corsa will depend on a number of factors. A family of 6 with an MPV may well have much better justification for needing a larger vehicle than a Bentley driver who's got another 5 in the garage. 

In my experience, actually most Bentley drivers were perfectly happy having a Corsa or equivalent or even no replacement car at all and the only exception was an executive chauffeur where it was perfectly reasonable needing a much more appropriate replacement licensed vehicle than the smallest thing possible. 

Obviously there are exceptions but its much more people with "executive" cars or 2nd hand/ aging (but not classic) prestige vehicles than the guy with the new Ferrari etc. Travelling sales guys who are the worst of all which is funny as I dont think I have ever seen the car of a single one of the sales guys that have pitched to me despite the claimants saying they'll lose millions in sales turning up in a Mondeo rather than BMW 320

oscarward

I’m with LV and recently had this exact situation.  I first went to the TP insurers (axa) who accepted liability but tried to palm me off to a management group to repair. This company  told me they don’t deal with private vehicles. Given the difficulties of getting in touch with Axa I went back to LV who were superb.

They contacted Axa and then declared it as a no fault claim, arranged a repair at their own repairers (Gemini) who were superb and a like for like hire car.  An Audi A4 from Enterprise at 140 per day😳.

car fixed with a lifetime warranty and a happy customer. Well done LV.