credit hire car from insurance company

adrian85t

Good afternoon,
I have a situation, following a car accident, which I don't know how to proceed with.
So, following an accident with our family car, we have been contacted by insurance company to receive a hire car for the time our car is under work. As I understood from all communications way and back with insurance company and hire company, I believe is a credit hire car. Recently, we have been contacted by attorneys (they hired to represent the hire company or insurance company) to sent them all our bank statements and pay-slips. In the body of the mail it said that the third party disputes the fact that we could opt for a car to hire ourself and no need to take the hire car provided by our insurer. It also said the judge asked this because we stipulate that we could not afford to deal with a hire car without their help.
On another side of the situation, because a mix-up between insurance and hire, the repairing of our personal car have been delayed.

Question1: Are they trying to put us to pay for the credit hire car? (would be a lot of money)
Question2: Under the law, does they have the obligation to present up a time-log with everything happened with our personal car while it was under their management? Can this help us later on, if necessary?

Thank you!

Aylesbury_Duck

adrian85t said:

Good afternoon,
I have a situation, following a car accident, which I don't know how to proceed with.
So, following an accident with our family car, we have been contacted by insurance company to receive a hire car for the time our car is under work. As I understood from all communications way and back with insurance company and hire company, I believe is a credit hire car. Recently, we have been contacted by attorneys (they hired to represent the hire company or insurance company) to sent them all our bank statements and pay-slips. In the body of the mail it said that the third party disputes the fact that we could opt for a car to hire ourself and no need to take the hire car provided by our insurer. It also said the judge asked this because we stipulate that we could not afford to deal with a hire car without their help.
On another side of the situation, because a mix-up between insurance and hire, the repairing of our personal car have been delayed.

Question1: Are they trying to put us to pay for the credit hire car? (would be a lot of money)
Question2: Under the law, does they have the obligation to present up a time-log with everything happened with our personal car while it was under their management? Can this help us later on, if necessary?

Thank you!

First question:  Are you in the UK?  "Attorney" is usually used in American English.

Assuming you are in the UK, you need to hand all this to your own insurer.  You pay them a premium to manage all of this, and I wouldn't be sending any lawyers or the other party's insurance company your bank statements and payslips.  You do have a duty to minimise your claim, but if you need a hire car for a period, sort it out with your own insurance company or get them to deal with the other party.  If you try and DIY and get it wrong, you may be liable for costs at some point.

MyRealNameToo

adrian85t said:

I have a situation, following a car accident, which I don't know how to proceed with.
So, following an accident with our family car, we have been contacted by insurance company to receive a hire car for the time our car is under work. As I understood from all communications way and back with insurance company and hire company, I believe is a credit hire car. Recently, we have been contacted by attorneys (they hired to represent the hire company or insurance company) to sent them all our bank statements and pay-slips. In the body of the mail it said that the third party disputes the fact that we could opt for a car to hire ourself and no need to take the hire car provided by our insurer. It also said the judge asked this because we stipulate that we could not afford to deal with a hire car without their help.
On another side of the situation, because a mix-up between insurance and hire, the repairing of our personal car have been delayed.

Question1: Are they trying to put us to pay for the credit hire car? (would be a lot of money)
Question2: Under the law, does they have the obligation to present up a time-log with everything happened with our personal car while it was under their management? Can this help us later on, if necessary?

Who's your insurer?

Have you actually read the paperwork you signed with the hire company? 

Credit hire is common, many brokers and other intermediaries sell refer all their non-fault to credit hire and repairs. For actual underwriters/insurers it's less common with the one notable exception of Admiral Group. Its more common for insurers to deal with the repair themselves but to pass the customer to credit hire if their policy doesnt provide a replacement vehicle, the garage doesnt have a spare courtesy car or the Group A car potentially provided isnt appropriate for the needs. 

In any case the insurer has nothing at all to do with the credit hire, they've just handed your details over to a third party company. 

One of the common challenges on credit hire is that the claimant didnt need to rely on credit hire and could have afforded to simply hire the car themselves and then claim back their losses. If they are talking to you now about asking for bank statements and payslips etc then no judge has said anything, its preparation work before deciding if to issue proceedings. 

1) You need to read your contract, most credit hire states that if you support them in their recovery efforts and haven't committed fraud then you will not owe them anything no matter the outcome. The only time when you start owing them money is when you start saying you arent willing to help them get their money back like refusing to give bank statements

2) No, there is no law that says that. It's unclear who even dealt with the repairs to your vehicle. They will have their own logs, they may well use them if the third party insurer also disputes the duration of the hire but thats all their problem as long as you continue to support them and you handed the car back when they told you to. 

Aylesbury_Duck said:
you need to hand all this to your own insurer.  You pay them a premium to manage all of this, and I wouldn't be sending any lawyers or the other party's insurance company your bank statements and payslips.  You do have a duty to minimise your claim, but if you need a hire car for a period, sort it out with your own insurance company or get them to deal with the other party.  If you try and DIY and get it wrong, you may be liable for costs at some point.

Insurers won't be interested... this is like us having a chat about kitchens with you saying you need yours done, me saying "bob did a good job for me" and then you coming back to me saying bob's done a bad job on yours. Whilst I may be sorry to hear you arent happy I'm not party to the contract, Im not on the hook for bob's performance etc. 

This is all water under the bridge, the TPI only disputes hire costs when the bill has been sent which happens after the hire has concluded. The OP ultimately hired a car at several times the cost they could have hired one for had they gone to their local hire firm. Whilst cost is one consideration there are many other complexities... we dont know either the original estimated repair time and the ultimate repair time but the two are fairly frequently not the same and if you have privately hired its complex when you need to keep extending it every few days... hire companies need the vehicle back as they've planned to hire it to someone else etc. Credit hire have much lower utilisation rates because this is 99% of hires for them which gives them the flexibility to allocate each car for indeterminate period and the cost flows through to the third party insurers. 

Certainly contacting the third party insurer and asking them to provide hire can be a good option but that only works if they've accepted liability and concluded indemnity queries... sure if you are talking about a small dent you can wait and book the car in for repairs after but if the car is undrivable due to the damage you normally need a car today not one in 3 weeks time 

adrian85t

Thank you all for your advice.