Car Insurance issue - help! Yoga/OneCall/AX

Munchkinsmum

Hubby had an incident a few months ago where a car reversed into him (he was parked). The lady said she didn’t want to go to insurance, but was happy to sort it out. We ended up reporting it to our insurance anyways (as I believe we had to?) and the lady admitted responsibility over the phone to our insurers. 

My husband used Yoga Insurance - his phone line however went through to OneCall which seemed to be some sort of third party company who said to use them to deal with the claim as opposed to Yoga who would charge the excess, so there’s some sort of underwriting link there. OneCall then said they didn’t have a hire car available so passed it on to a company called AX. 

The car was sent off for repairs, and we received a hire car - it ended up being dragged out over about 5 weeks and we were a bit concerned particularly as the hire car was a shiny new hybrid, but we hadn’t had a say in what car we received or how long for. But eventually got our car back and fixed, all good. 

However we have now had an email from AX saying they have submitted the claim but the responsible party hasn’t paid up, and they need further info for them to take it to solicitors. It says ‘will I be responsible for the hire charges if they do not pay - provided you continue to comply with the terms of your rental agreement which includes assisting us in the recovery of your claim then your liability is limited to the amount we are able to recover from the fault party’s insurer’.


The questions included ‘please give me examples of what you use your vehicle for’ amongst other things. The concerning part states ‘the third party insurers will suggest that you should have hired a vehicle yourself using your own funds instead of hiring a vehicle from AX. Can you confirm whether you were in a financial position to hire a vehicle at the time of incident?’ If you choose no, it then says ‘if you didn’t have funds to hire a vehicle the authorised representative will ask for copies of your bank statements as standard 3 months before during and after hire. ‘ 

At the end of the form it says ‘I confirm my authority to transfer the management of my existing claim to an authorised representative. The authority includes an authorised representative issuing court proceeding based on information provided by me and or held on AX’s file. I understand that the authorised representative will be signing statements of truth on the court documents on my behalf and that proceedings of contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes or causes to be made a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth with the
our an honest belief in its truth’

I’ve asked hubby to review the terms of hire he signed to arrange the hire car by AX and it includes the line ‘I understand that if I choose to hire on credit I am personally liable for paying the hire costs which I would not have incurred had I been offered and accepted a suitable courtesy vehicle from my own motor insurer or legal expenses insurer.’

That document also breaks down the daily charges so we are now terrified we are going to be somehow liable for about £8000 of fees. Hubby is kicking himself for swapping to a cheap insurer - what can we do? We are happy to comply and provide anything but I’m finding it concerning we need to provide bank statements. All we wanted was a hire car to replace ours while ours was fixed following a no fault incident! 

Has anyone dealt with this, or have any advice please?

DullGreyGuy

Yoga Insurance is an intermediary, as is One Call, both are based in the same building and owned by the same person.

The car you have been given is a credit hire, as they have said, as long as you keep supporting them you have no liability as its capped to the level that the third part is deemed liable (ie the TP pays it)

They should have asked these kinds of questions up front however as people sign the T&Cs without reading them properly so credit hire companies can be lax in ensuring the questions are asked and understood (some do ask but are good at ensuring its done in a patter that you just nod and agree without really hearing or understanding the significance of the statement)

Ultimately to avoid the credit hire charges you need to answer their Qs etc but if you are going to say you didn't need the car or could have afforded to pay for it yourself then have a conversation with the credit hire company first.

Lizanp

Can I ask how you dealt with this in the end as I’m in the same position, a no fault accident, can’t get answers from One Call Claims who deny they are the same company as Yoga Insurance. Spend hours on chat boxes where I’m either given duff info, incorrect numbers to call or just fobbed off with another chat box!

BelindaRaison

haven’t had the greatest experience with Yoga Insurance. I bought car insurance from them then decided to cancel  (an hour later and almost a month before the insurance was due to start!) only to find that they had charged me £49.99 for cancelling. When I complained (online with an assistant - there seems to be no phone number available) they said I should have read through the 13+ pages of Ts&Cs before buying the insurance! There is no free 14 day cooling off period in which to cancel which I believed to be the law. After much complaining they have reduced the fee to £25.99. Won’t be using them again!

DullGreyGuy

BelindaRaison said:
There is no free 14 day cooling off period in which to cancel which I believed to be the law. After much complaining they have reduced the fee to £25.99. Won’t be using them again!

The law is that there is a 14 day cancellation period, it doesnt say it has to be fee free. After that in theory you have no right to cancel however for most mass market products you can (there are exceptions like PMI and annuities) 

Munchkinsmum

I'm hoping to revisit this - we have now been informed that it is going to court early next year as the insurance company of the person who was liable will not pay out. This has made us both very nervous, particularly as the case states it is my husband vs the other insurance company, not our insurance company vs the other insurance company.

Has anyone else had this happen? The emails still say that if we comply we won't need to pay but this has been such a dreadful experience.

DullGreyGuy

Assume this is the accident management company/credit hire company that's issued?

Insurers, when they deal with your claim, legally step into your shoes (subrogation) and "inherit" your right to sue the counterparty. This means there is technically a choice of if its PH -v- TP or Ins -v- TP or Ins -v- TPI, any combination is valid. Most commonly it's left as PH -v- TP but there's no need to be, does help when quoting case law else there would be thousands of Direct Line -v- Axa etc.

Accident management companies dont have the right of subrogation, they used to claim they did but the courts struck that out and a lot of hire companies ended up having unpaid bills. Hence now you have the convoluted wording in your contract about you being liable for the cost of the hire capped to the liability of the third party. So you have to sue the third party/their insurers for that liability, the hire company will represent you, and hence its you -v- the TPI on the paperwork. 

Most cases are still settled out of court, those that go to court are often dealt with by written submissions, the few that do actually go to a hearing its done in the judges office around a table... no big court room, no wigs/robes, no juries or the pomp and ceremony you see on TV

annecord

Well, I've come here out of desperation so am reassured (though sorry) to find others having the same experience as me.  I was driven in to by an ASDA van a month ago, and they admitted liability.  I'm insured with Yoga, but when I went on the Yoga website, I was directed to One Call Claims - no suggestion they were part of Yoga.  They were helpful and provided what I thought was a courtesy car - but it wasn't!!  It was a hire car.  I did not realise the difference, never having had to make a car insurance claim before.  Next thing I know, I'm being contacted by One Call's solicitors to say that there will be a court case because the other party won't pay for the car hire.  I'm asked extraordinary questions, like will I stand up in court and state that I understood I was hiring a vehicle, would I have been able to afford to hire a car, etc.  It is all phrased as if I was trying to wangle free care hire for a couple of weeks, whereas in reality an accident that I didn't cause meant I was left without a car and couldn't get to work, so accepted the car I was offered without realising it was not a courtesy car. I'm warned by the solicitors  that if  I I don't co-operate with them or One Call I will be liable for the cost of the car hire - some £2,000!  I feel like I'm in a terrible nightmare.  How is this sort of thing allowed?!!

DullGreyGuy

annecord said:
How is this sort of thing allowed?!!

As a knowledgable outsider, there really is a 50/50 element. Ultimately you will have been given paperwork to sign when you got the car and had you read that paperwork it would have been talking of hire charges and your liability to pay the bill etc all which should have raised alarm bells however most people sign most paperwork thrust in front of them unread. 

I've spent too much time fighting against credit hire costs, I've seen all the declarations about affordability etc but I've never actually heard the introductory call the credit hire company makes. When customers complained that they weren't to get a courtesy car (eg no provision for one in policy) or it was to a be a Corsa and they've 5 kids then we'd offer to forward their details to a multinational car hire company's accident help service to "see what they can do". For someone listening it should have been clear it wasn't under their policy. I have no idea if the hire company asked about affordability on receiving the details... I believe most of those that say they didn't. 

Most in the industry hate them, many who've never been in an accident hate them, but they do ultimately provide a service for those not at fault who don't have an alternative plan when their car is taken out of action so simply banning them probably isn't the answer either (though some insurers tried hard to bankrupt them by holding out on payments)

4b3

I can only say that big insurance companies are no better. I am insured with Direct Line, I was rear ended in August 2023 and am still waiting on my car being repaired and returned to me.  I have since been driving a hybrid, again no choice in the vehicle just that "it will be something similar to your own".  During this time the MOT expired on my own car, consequently I could not tax the vehicle and next week the insurance is due to be renewed. I will not be renewing it fully comp, as it was, but for 3rd party fire and theft until it is returned. 

DullGreyGuy

4b3 said:

I will not be renewing it fully comp, as it was, but for 3rd party fire and theft until it is returned. 

For reasons explained on here many times before, its often more expensive to insurer it TPFT than it is comprehensive so make sure you check both prices before committing to TPFT @4b3