Car damaged whilst being transported by recovery company.

Korkyb

Hi all

My car was being recovered / transported back to my home location after breaking down while visiting friends at the other side of the country for Christmas (over 500 miles away).

The car needs just a new alternator but as there was no chance of this being done over Christmas at the breakdown location (& I had to get home for work) I had arranged for the car to be recovered to my home location (through Autoaid) and for the alternator to be replaced by my local mechanic.

The car was damaged (? roof & boot) while being transported & has now been left at a auto bodyshop which the recovery company chose / arranged.

The recovery company have admitted full liability & their insurance company have been contacted by them.

I've contacted my insurance company (Admiral) but it seems that they aren't keen to get involved possibly because the car wasn't in my care at the time of the incident.

They did advise me to contact the legal helpline which I have through Admiral & they advised that as liability is clear and has been admitted by the recovery company it should be sorted by the recovery companies insurance.

It all seems pretty straightforward & both Autoaid and the recovery company are doing everything I would expect to help. (I'm actually really very impressed with Autoaid's service).


So onto my questions.


1/

I need a vehicle to get to work so do I:

- try to contact the recovery companies insurer to see if they will arrange a hire car.

or

- arrange a hire car myself and claim the cost back at a later date.

or

- something else :-)



2/

Is there anything else I should be doing?




Thanks for any advice !!

Grumpy_chap

You should do what you can to minimise the cost of hire car.  This would indicate that the liable insurer should be given the opportunity to provide the hire car before you look at alternative options.

DullGreyGuy

The safest option on 1 is to go to their insurers and give them the opportunity to provide it as then as long as you return it when they tell you there is no risk of you being landed with a bill at the end. Your other two options are to hire it yourself or have Admiral refer you to Auxilis for a credit hire car if you cannot afford to hire it yourself. 

As to anything else? Just keeping documentary evidence of any surplus expenses you incur as a result, eg if you have to catch a taxi to work because they cannot hire a car in time for day 1 etc.

Korkyb

Thanks chaps.

Trying to get details of the recovery company's insurers.

Korkyb

Sorted.

Company had informed their broker but broker hadn't informed insurance company.

I had to act as a go between just to get the claim / incident registered.

Sorted now and hire car waiting to be picked up.

Thanks again!