Credit hire company (I think) have written off my £6000 car for a minor cosmetic scratch

soupdog

Whilst I was stationary in a narrow street a car came towards me. Instead of stopping to let me reverse out of their way, they mounted the pavement to try to pass me and made a minor scratch on my 10 yr old skoda superb that didn't even go past the undercoat. Dashcam footage front and rear confirmed  everything.

I told my insurance company, as I am obliged to. They said it was a no fault accident suggested I pass the claim to AX, a credit hire company, to get the scratch repaired, telling me that way I won't pay any excess and won't lose any NCB.  I was a bit reluctant since the damage was so minor and I didn't really mind if it was repaired or not, but it seemed that's what I had to do.

The credit hire company arranged for me to have a small hire car which apparently I won't have to pay for even if they can't claim the cost back from the other driver (I hope this is true), and arranged for a repair shop to take my car away for a repair quote.

A week later the credit hire company are telling me that they have written off my £6,000 car as uneconomical to repair!

I could have done it myself with a £10 can of spray paint from Halfords. This is a 10 year old car, I'm not expecting my door to be restored to showroom condition.

I now don't know what to do. I want my car back, with or without the scratch and I am not bothered about making any money out of this.

I don't even know who decided it was uneconomical as my insurance company effectively washed their hands of it when they passed it to the CHC. I understand from MSE that I can accept a settlement payment (from whom I don't know) and then I might then be able to buy my car back from whoever has it / owns it now. But then my car will have been officially written off, causing me lower insured value and higher premiums in the future.
I seem to be getting involved in a whole load of expense for something that was not my fault.

Can anyone advise me what I should do?

DullGreyGuy

So you have been passed across to the company to do credit hire and credit repair.

These firms use "independent engineers" to review the garage repairs estimates and validate that they are both reasonable and that the vehicle isnt beyond economical repair. If it is beyond economical repair then engineers report is passed to the third party insurer for settlement of the total loss. 

It doesnt cost more to insurer a total loss vehicle, if anything it should cost less.

You need to get on to the credit hire company to talk about the return of your vehicle and ending hire as your car is presumably still derivable. The downside of this will be they lose a bit of interest in helping with the settlement because their earnings are now capped but they ultimately will want to get paid.

And yes, how the contracts are worded is confusing but as long as you support their recovery attempts, which can get annoying after a while, then you have no liability for the hire costs. 

daveyjp

Insurance companies are too keen to get you to follow their way of doing things, time for you to take back control.

My approach would be to advise the insurance company and accident (mis) managment company that a write off is excessive for the amount of damage, you want the vehicle back today and you want them to close the case.

If the damage is minor and the car is driveable get a quote for a repair you are happy with (if that is what you want) and get the third party insurance company to agree to pay for the work.

DullGreyGuy

daveyjp said:

My approach would be to advise the insurance company and accident (mis) managment company that a write off is excessive for the amount of damage, you want the vehicle back today and you want them to close the case.

Their insurer has already closed the case @daveyjp and the credit hire company cannot/wont close the case as they are already in hire and an engineer has inspected and so they have outlay to recover... bypassing them now and trying to cut them as you suggest is potentially going to result in the OP being billed for at least the engineers report if not hire as well. 

soupdog

Thanks to all who replied but after finding it extremely difficult to contact AX ('contact us' link gives an error, phone rings for 40 minutes without being answered, 'message us' on their claims portal results in no response), finally a live chat resulted in a very nice person from AX ringing me back and I think it all got resolved in a few minutes. The assessor said my car was valued at £4,280 and the salvage value was £898. The body shop's quote was £3,200 !!, so its not surprising the insurers wrote it off as a CAT N.

Net result is that I dropped off the free hire car that given to me by AX at the body shop just now and collected my un-repaired car. In the next few days the other driver's insurance company will pay me roughly £3,300, being the pre accident valuation minus the salvage value, so effectively I am buying my car back for £898 using their £4,280 payout to do so. I then go to Halfords, buy a tin of touch up paint to fix my car and bank the rest of the payout.

Apparently I could have simply cancelled the whole thing with AX but since the other insurer might have already told mine about the write off it seemed more sensible not to do that. AX said that my insurance won't be affected, no excess, no loss of NCB no premium increase etc since my company were not involved in any claim and that all the costs of the hire car will be recovered from the other insurer. The only thing is that the re-sell value of my car is now 10% less than before as if I ever sell it I need to tell the buyer that it was once written off, but I've no intention of selling it. I'll just run it into the ground now.

I did have a go at the body shop for putting in such an inflated repair cost though. I told them I've lost 10% of my car's value and you have lost £3200 income. If they had made a more reasonable quote, appropriate to a 10 yr old car instead of quoting to spray just one side of my car back to showroom condition, then I wouldn't have lost 10% and they would be a bit richer. The whole thing seems a big rip off to me. Still, I'm happy.

DullGreyGuy

soupdog said:

AX said that my insurance won't be affected, no excess, no loss of NCB no premium increase etc since my company were not involved in any claim and that all the costs of the hire car will be recovered from the other insurer. The only thing is that the re-sell value of my car is now 10% less than before as if I ever sell it I need to tell the buyer that it was once written off, but I've no intention of selling it. I'll just run it into the ground now.

I did have a go at the body shop for putting in such an inflated repair cost though. I told them I've lost 10% of my car's value and you have lost £3200 income. If they had made a more reasonable quote, appropriate to a 10 yr old car instead of quoting to spray just one side of my car back to showroom condition, then I wouldn't have lost 10% and they would be a bit richer. The whole thing seems a big rip off to me. Still, I'm happy.

They are right on the first few points but are not at liberty or suitable qualified to opinion on the final point about premium. You have been involved in a non-fault claim which will have to be declared for the next 3-5 years. Some insurers will increase premiums as a consequence, some wont, a lot will depend on other factor (eg my last Motor client didnt increase for 1 non-fault claim but did for 2 and so it'd depend if this is your first or not).

You've lost 10% but gained £3,300 so probably shouldnt complain too much at them and the longer you own the car the less that 10% will be in absolute terms. 

Depending over how many panels the scratch was there can be a lot of blending in, no bodyshop is going to quote on just using a touchup marker etc when they've the opportunity of getting a decent number of hours out of an insurer and those bodyshops that dont blend in properly result in the insurer getting complaints and spending time arguing with the garage over whos fault it is and who has to pay for the rework etc.

daveyjp

£3200 for a minor scratch on a 10 year old car is crazy and shows how insurance companies load the costs.

No doubt they quoted for a whole side respray which is unnecessary, even faded older paint can be colour matched.

If you went to the same bodyshop for a minor repair it would be a few hundred quid!