One Call Car Hire Misselling

Scott_T_2

My mother had a car accident in August, she was stationary at a red light and someone drove into the back of her. I was in the car in front and both of us had dash cams that caught the sound and shake of the impact.
the driver immediately admitted fault, his details were taken at the scene and all was ok.
mum’s insured by One Call, with comprehensive cover INCLUDING a courtesy car.
during the claims process One Call arranged a hire care through Auxillis at a cost of £200 a day. The assured her costs would be covered by the ‘at fault’ driver.
Now the at fault driver is contesting the cost of the hire car apparently the £5700 sum will have to be paid by mum if Auxillis cannot retrieve the costs from the other driver’s insurance. 

Mum wanted the courtesy car her insurance covered and not the expensive hire car but it wasn’t clear what One Call were arranging for her. She’s in her 70s, retired, and I believe One Call purposefully mislead her into the more expensive hire car option.

has anyone experienced something similar? This has a whiff for misselling car finance, surely it’s not right!?
any advice welcome. We’ve already asked the companies involved for customer call transcripts so are waiting for those.

thanks!

born_again

She just forwards it all to her ins co to deal with.

elsien

There will have been something in the paperwork that she signed and which she should have read first when she picked up the hire car explaining her liability.
Has she checked the terms of her insurance policy with one call  because some of them do direct you through a third party claims management company rather than providing a car directly?

MyRealNameToo

Scott_T_2 said:

My mother had a car accident in August, she was stationary at a red light and someone drove into the back of her. I was in the car in front and both of us had dash cams that caught the sound and shake of the impact.
the driver immediately admitted fault, his details were taken at the scene and all was ok.
mum’s insured by One Call, with comprehensive cover INCLUDING a courtesy car.
during the claims process One Call arranged a hire care through Auxillis at a cost of £200 a day. The assured her costs would be covered by the ‘at fault’ driver.
Now the at fault driver is contesting the cost of the hire car apparently the £5700 sum will have to be paid by mum if Auxillis cannot retrieve the costs from the other driver’s insurance. 

Mum wanted the courtesy car her insurance covered and not the expensive hire car but it wasn’t clear what One Call were arranging for her. She’s in her 70s, retired, and I believe One Call purposefully mislead her into the more expensive hire car option.

has anyone experienced something similar? This has a whiff for misselling car finance, surely it’s not right!?
any advice welcome. We’ve already asked the companies involved for customer call transcripts so are waiting for those.

One Call are an intermediary not the insurer. 

A traditional courtesy car is a vehicle provided by the garage doing the repairs to the vehicle, its not guaranteed and is not available until your car is confirmed as repairable and will never be available if the car is a total loss. It tends to be a small 3 door car. 

For many people the uncertainly is unhelpful, particularly if the garage says they dont have a spare courtesy car, and even if one is available the small 3 door nature of the car doesnt work for many. As a consequence credit hire exists to help those in non-fault accidents who need a replacement vehicle thats suitable to their needs. 

Intermediarys in particular are keen to supplement their introducer fees with the additional revenue of selling passing customers to accident management firms to provide credit hire etc. 

Ultimately it's likely they did say what they were doing, she may not have understood it fully but thats another matter. Without doubt the document she signed on getting the car will have stated it's a credit agreement but again it's likely she signed without reading. 

At the end of the day these setups are very common, as also are disputes on the value of the claim. As long as she does what the company asks then she won't be liable for any shortfall in payment; its when people get silly and start refusing to support the recovery efforts after signing a contract to say they will support that things get messy and hirers start becoming liable for the fees.