Accidental Van Rental Damage

DullGreyGuy

Damage Waiver

Damage Waiver does not cover: damage caused by the use of the wrong fuel or any failure to take all reasonable measures to look after the vehicle keys or any other device which unlocks the vehicle and/or enables the vehicle to be started.

Damage Waiver will be voided if damage is caused by: failure to secure the vehicle keys and failure to lock the vehicle, unauthorised repairs on the vehicle, failure to stop using the vehicle once a fault becomes known, use by an unauthorised driver, use by an unlicensed driver, use for hire and reward, use of vehicle for any illegal purpose or deliberately causing injury or damage to property, racing, pacemaking, or teaching someone to drive, use whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs, use of the vehicle outside of the United Kingdom without our written permission, overloaded with more passengers than seatbelts, towing, use off road, transporting dangerous or noxious substances, use of vehicle in a reckless manner, or use of vehicle on an aerodrome, airfield, airport or military installation.

I have seen in the past that going through a height restriction that is lower than the stated height of the vehicle is considered reckless and hence triggers the exclusions above

PRT7 said:

They advised on the phone that any accidental damage is not covered and i should have this covered under my own insurance...which i clearly dont. i dont think anyone has fully comp cover included on van rentals when insuring their own car. 

It is only AD under certain circumstances that isnt covered, unless you removed the damage waiver cover. Some business fleet policies will cover hire vehicles as standard, for non-business policies you'd need to actively add the vehicle as a temporary additional vehicle.

PRT7 said:

their report is a joke really, states the car can be repaired within 151 hours (yet they've still claimed it as 'Total Loss'), i had a friend of a friend whos worked in repairs for years look at this and he advised it would take about 60 hours to repair...these companies obviously go to the extremes. 

A total loss includes cases where its going to cost more to repair than the vehicle is worth... its done on a marginal basis as there is always a risk costs escalate when you find more damage after stripping back. Total Loss doesnt mean its unrepairable, in 99% of cases its just not economical to repair it. 

If you wanted to challenge their estimate you'd ideally have someone with a solution like Audatex  that will give an industry standard estimate on time and parts needed... anyone can teeth suck and say its X hours but then present a higher bill afterwards saying it was more work than they thought.

Herzlos

I'm assuming a transit 320 is L3 H2? Which is 2.5m high?

There really should have been some indication of the vehicle height, but then it'd have been reasonable for you to check.

Did the cark park have a height restriction sign which you drove past without checking?

There's almost certainly an exclusion about driving the van where you shouldn't (in this case, in a car park that was too low) since that's regarded as negligence and not an accident.

Even at 60 hours to repair, at £75/hour from a main dealer that's £4500 in labour alone, and likely the fat end of 2 weeks in a repair bay. At their estimate of 151 hours you're looking at £11,325 in labour and 4 weeks of lost hire revenue, so I can see how they'd get it to £13,000 by the time they pay for parts.

I think you definitely need to speak to a lawyer about whether or not you can argue the accident damage angle and if you can shift the blame onto the car park if the signage was insufficient.

user1977

If the driver tries to stick the vehicle through a gap which is too small, that's always going to be the driver's fault - having measurements in the cab are a useful precaution, but a lack of them doesn't shift the blame to the hire company (you don't need measurements in your own car, do you?). So really the dispute is just about the level of costs.

Grumpy_chap

PRT7 said:

claimed it as 'Total Loss').

I am not knowledgeable on the ins and outs of the insurance - as a lay person I would have said the insurance should cover it.

If the insurance does not cover it, and the OP has to pay the "total loss" value of £13k, does the OP then become the owner of the damaged van?
That would, by the sounds of it, still be a perfectly usable van albeit with a dent in the roof, and would have quite some value still.

DullGreyGuy

Grumpy_chap said:

PRT7 said:

claimed it as 'Total Loss').

I am not knowledgeable on the ins and outs of the insurance - as a lay person I would have said the insurance should cover it.

If the insurance does not cover it, and the OP has to pay the "total loss" value of £13k, does the OP then become the owner of the damaged van?
That would, by the sounds of it, still be a perfectly usable van albeit with a dent in the roof, and would have quite some value still.

The Damage Waiver's opening line is that this isnt insurance

It depends if the £13k is net or gross of salvage. It would ordinarily be net in which case the OP hasnt paid the full value but the value less the value of the salvage but if its gross they have to either receive the salvage or be passed it value

Grumpy_chap

DullGreyGuy said:

The Damage Waiver's opening line is that this isnt insurance

Can the CDW become "not insurance" just because someone writes that it is not insurance?

If it looks like insurance, sounds like insurance and behaves like insurance...

It may not be insurance in the conventional manner if the hire company do not have a policy that is underwritten by an external syndicate but instead collect all the £1,750 payments and then use that pool to meet any costs, but that is still insurance.  It can't matter whether the insurance is self-insure or externally underwritten, it is still insurance.  Probably makes sense for a hire firm to just have conventional insurance for RTA needs and injury matters, but cover own-vehicle damage through self-funded repairs or diminished value on disposal.

DullGreyGuy

Grumpy_chap said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The Damage Waiver's opening line is that this isnt insurance

Can the CDW become "not insurance" just because someone writes that it is not insurance?

If it looks like insurance, sounds like insurance and behaves like insurance...

It may not be insurance in the conventional manner if the hire company do not have a policy that is underwritten by an external syndicate but instead collect all the £1,750 payments and then use that pool to meet any costs, but that is still insurance.  It can't matter whether the insurance is self-insure or externally underwritten, it is still insurance.  Probably makes sense for a hire firm to just have conventional insurance for RTA needs and injury matters, but cover own-vehicle damage through self-funded repairs or diminished value on disposal.

Certainly true that you cannot just write its not insurance to avoid it being insurance but there are long and complex rules over what is and isnt insurance and lots of companies spend a lot of money ensuring their products are legally defined as not insurance (eg warranties, boiler service plans, vehicle breakdown etc).

If it is insurance then the company gets caught by having to being regulated by the PRA, having to hold capital according to Solvency II, pay into FSCS and FOS all of which add massive costs and complexities. 

I've only touched on two hire car company's insurance arrangements and both had effectively loss sensitive TPO cover... so the insurer only pays third party liability claims and technically from the ground up to comply with EU/UK and other countries laws. They however have a side agreement for the hire company to reimburse the insurer for the first $X per of the aggregate total of all claims; with one hire car company X was a large 7 figure number. This means for the first $X each year the insurer is only charging a claims handling fee plus taxes rather than any risk transfer beyond counterparty risk.

I wouldnt be surprised if some dont "self insure" but by that term mean a true self insurer where they have a subsidary entity that is a legal insurance company which then gives them access to the reinsurance market 

PS. They can only take the full £1,750 if their losses equal or exceed that, if the losses are below this they can only charge their actual loss. Therefore there is no pool created as no one is paying above what they cost to create a surplus to pay others.

Mildly_Miffed

As I started to read the thread, I thought to myself this is going to be overhead damage on a high roof van. It's almost always excluded from van rental insurance.

£13,000 is very likely to be the undamaged value of the van, minus the CatS structurally damaged salvage value, with an element of lost rental income. That's all normal.

I don't think anybody's done anything wrong here except the driver of the van. If the bill goes unpaid, and the rental company take it to court, they'll win.

Grey_Critic

When I operted a Car/Van hire business in 1984 our insurance was based on sales. - We hired vehicles and each month and paid a percentage of our Gross income to the insurers so if our income in a month was £1,000 we might pay 5% - Each year based on our claim record the percentage would go up or down.

When I started the business I had done a great deal of research and saw CDW as a very good source of income but selling it was not so easy. Don't need that I have not had an accident in 20/30/40 years of driving. When asked why they were hiring the reply was often **Because of that idiot who drove intpo me - car/van is in your bodyshop. hard to convince people that when you have a bump it does not matter who is responsible - It IS an accident.

We decided to incorporate CDW into the hire as standard whilst the excess being insured was expensive - our slogan *The price you see is the price you pay - NO hidden extras* competition said it would not work but soon started operating the same way.

I used to hire vans from Enterprise and they all had a notice telling of high they were

facade

I think people who hire vans should be told, -loudly and in block capitals, that there is no insurance cover for roof damage caused by lack of clearance.

It's all very well saying the driver was careless, but the whole point of comprehensive insurance is it covers damage caused when you are careless- how else would you get damage and no-one else liable? (apart from hit & run whilst parked)

To exclude one specific form of carelessness- because it is the most common cause of significant damage to a tall van, and then not draw attention to that exclusion is just wrong imho.