Credit Hire -Court Proceedings

waribai

Had a non-fault accident two years ago and use Enterprise credit hire. Just had a letter informing me that the £1200 charge for the hire of 9 days is being disputed by the 3rd party insurer as excessive. They want copies of all my financial statements. 
My worry is that my credit card has a £20k limit on it. However, had I used a credit card, I could not have afforded the interest comfortably. Is there any chance that the court would say I should have used my credit card?

Thanks

Jenni_D

Did your insurer recommend a claims handler (e.g. Auxilis) and they engaged the credit hire vehicle for you? If not, how did you come to use Enterprise for a hire car? Did you pursue a claim directly with the other party's insurer?

Who is asking for your financial statements?

(Costs for credit hire vehicles are always grossly inflated where an insurance claim is in play. Insurers complain about this - and then do exactly the same thing when their policy holder is not at fault).

waribai

My insurer Covea directed me towards Enterprise and engaged them. The solicitors representing Enterprise want the financial statements to pursue the 3rd party’s insurers who are refusing to pay.

DullGreyGuy

Jenni_D said:

Did your insurer recommend a claims handler (e.g. Auxilis) and they engaged the credit hire vehicle for you? If not, how did you come to use Enterprise for a hire car? Did you pursue a claim directly with the other party's insurer?

Most proper accident management companies have their own credit hire arm like Enterprise and Auxilis (which used to be called HelpHire which may better describe what they do). 

If they pursued the claim directly with the TPI from the outset the TPI would have provided a hire car not a credit hire.

Jenni_D said:

Who is asking for your financial statements?

(Costs for credit hire vehicles are always grossly inflated where an insurance claim is in play. Insurers complain about this - and then do exactly the same thing when their policy holder is not at fault).

Enterprise will be asking for the bank statement and a witness statement to support their case that the OP needed to rely on credit hire as they were unable to sign up to a regular hire car with an unknown possible duration etc. Its all run of the mill stuff and very few cases ultimately end in court and certainly not for £1,200

waribai

Thanks. Would having access to a credit card with a £20k limit become problematic?

chrisw

It doesn't really matter to you, you just have to provide the information requested by Enterprise to assist them in recovering their money. They should have checked your financial position if they thought it might be an issue.

waribai

Thanks. That's useful to know!

DullGreyGuy

waribai said:

Thanks. Would having access to a credit card with a £20k limit become problematic?

At some point someone is going to ask you to sign a declaration that all of this was fully explained to you up front and you were asked about if you could afford to privately hire... you will almost certainly say it wasnt but they'll say you sign it or you are in breach of the terms and so at risk of becoming personally liable.

Credit Hire arguments have moved on a bit since I last was hands on with claims, I dont think you'll be the first one to have a high limit card and as you said, just because you have the limit doesn't mean you can necessarily afford the repayments.

waribai

To be honest, I do recall them mentioning something along the lines of could I afford to hire privately for an extended period of time. Obviously, at the time I had no idea it would only be 9 days.

DullGreyGuy

And that's always part of their argument, you're signing a blank cheque if you deal with it privately.

Bigwheels1111

I was hit from behind in a £400 car.
They had to give me a private hire car with insurance for over 3 months.
Later, I think about 18 months. The car fee was disputed and was going to court.
Over 10k in hire charges. Had to provide bank statements etc, earnings ie a tax return.
The day before court it was settled.
Bargained down to 7.5k.
This is common practice.