Educate me on insurance supplied curtesy cars...

ohreallƳ

Shopping for car insurance I'm reminded there can be pitfalls for the unwary re where the invoice ends up with a hire car.

Explain the situation as if I'm 8 and with particular regard to credit hires. Would I be better arranging my own hire if needed? How long a term would an insurance provided car typically be authorised for?

Strangely I've updated quotes to exclude car hire and the prices are exactly the same.

This is the only type of info from the aggregators…

Courtesy car

If your car was damaged in an accident, would you need a replacement car while it's being repaired?

If your car was stolen or written off (damaged beyond repair), would you
need a replacement car until your insurance claim has been settled?

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6676906/educate-me-on-insurance-supplied-curtesy-cars

Courtesy Car come in a number of flavours, insurers come up with their own marketing terms and someone will always do something differently

Traditional - a small basic car given to you by the garage doing the repairs, its subject to availability and subject to the car actually being repairable

Modern Basic - a small basic car hired by your insurers whilst your car is in for repair, no longer dependant on the garage having a spare car, now also protects for total losses and stolen/not recovered vehicles. Can have a maximum number of days even if your car still isnt ready

Modern Enhanced - basically the same as above but a better car, often badged as something equivalent to your own but most still have caps so fine if you have a Ford but you will probably get a Ford if your Ferrari is the damaged car

Some firms do a blend, so Traditional if repairable and hire as a fall back etc.

The questions at the bottom is trying to determine if you need the more expensive hire car option or are happy to live with a Ford Ka/ VW UP if the car is repairable and without a car if its unrepairable.

Credit Hire is a totally different beast, this is provided outside of the terms of your policy, the credit hire company take on the risk of not being able to recover their outlay and in exchange try and charge the third party much more than a standard hire rate. Some insurers will sell refer you to credit hire if you have had a non-fault accident and dont have appropriate courtesy car cover on your policy. Everyone and their wife will however also do referrals as credit hire companies pay well for them.

Slightly confusingly hire car companies often do both, so Enterprise are the supplier for a number of insurers for their modern courtesy car offering but also have a credit hire arm so you cant tell simply by the name of the firm if the hire is one or the other.

EssexExile

We used to pay extra for a courtesy car of similar size to our car, but it turned out that LV-'s definition of "similar" was different to ours. This year I removed the courtesy car from the policy and there was a large drop in premium.

eddddy

Regarding Credit Hire…

FWIW, on the few occasions I've been involved in no fault accidents, I've always chosen to deal direct with the other party's insurer.

The other party's insurer has arranged (and paid for) the car hire - so there is no possibility of disputes over Credit Hire charges, etc.

(And I've always chosen my own repairer - usually a main dealer.)

The other party's insurers always seem to 'bend over backwards' to keep me happy - probably because they don't want me to go to an Accident Management / Credit Hire company, who will attempt to fleece them.

(But there are some other pluses and minuses to dealing with the other party's insurers.)

ohreallƳ

Thanks folks.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82075825#Comment_82075825

The main minus is the fact you lose protection from the FOS if things go wrong.

Obviously this all works fine if the third party is identified, have their insurance in order, are prompt telling their insurers about the incident and admit liability promptly. Things get more complex if there is a dispute on the driver, whos at fault etc and you will find yourself much more on your own if you plan only extends as far as claiming directly from the third party insurer.

All my claims days were dealing with third parties… covering both fault and disputed liability cases (from our insured perspective). Some will sit back and wait, but if your not actively claiming on your insurance then nothing is going to move forward, we will continue to stick to our insured version of events that they were stationary when you hit them.

eddddy

MyRealNameToo said

The main minus is the fact you lose protection from the FOS if things go wrong.

Obviously this all works fine if the third party is identified, have their insurance in order, are prompt telling their insurers about the incident and admit liability promptly. Things get more complex if there is a dispute on the driver, whos at fault etc and you will find yourself much more on your own if you plan only extends as far as claiming directly from the third party insurer.

Just to clarify - in each case, the third party had contacted their insurer and admitted liability. In two cases, the third party insurers phoned me first and offered to deal direct with me. In another case, I contacted them.

In each case, I got my own repair quotes from my chosen main dealers, and passed the quotes onto the third party insurers. The insurers confirmed that they would pay the bill, and I made sure that the garage had contacted the insurers and understood that I would not be paying any of the bill.

And because the repairs were done by a main dealer, the car warranties were not affected.

As you say, I didn't have any protection from the FOS, but I relied instead on the reputation of the large, well established main dealer. (In one case, I went back to the garage a few weeks after the repair, because of problem with the new paintwork. And they put it right without a problem).

As for the hire car provided by the third party insurers, I made sure that they confirmed that I would not be liable for any hire charges, or any loss or damage.

dnpark38

@eddddy

Did you tell your insurance company you had a claim?

In my claim my Insurer asked me to deal with the persons insurer and my no claims would not be effected and I would not have to pay my excess. They would not say if there would be any effect on my next premium, time will tell. Was your premium effected?

The nominated repairer supplied a car to me and after a week rang me and told me to cease driving it and turned up 10 minutes later to collect it. Apparently the insurer wasn't covering it and a hire company would contact me in an hour to supply a hire car that the insurer would pay for.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82078309#Comment_82078309

Issues can be wider than just the quality of repairs, eg dispute if damage was caused in the accident or was pre-existing or most commonly, when its determined the vehicle is beyond economical repair and so you get a total loss settlement instead.

The only time you would have to pay anything on a TPI provided hire car would be if you refused to give it back when instructed, you chose to buy the CDW (in my day we'd pay the excess above your normal excess) or if you had an accident in it

Not saying its the wrong path to take, was my first job in claims to convince people it was the right path, just one you should make an informed choice on

eddddy

@eddddy

Did you tell your insurance company you had a claim?

In my claim my Insurer asked me to deal with the persons insurer and my no claims would not be effected and I would not have to pay my excess. They would not say if there would be any effect on my next premium, time will tell. Was your premium effected?

Yes - I did tell my insurer in each case.

In the most recent case, my insurer said they would mark the claim as "information only", and said I should contact them again if I needed them to get involved.

I had a different insurer for the previous cases, it was a while ago, but I don't recall any problems.

I imagine the insurance companies recorded it as a "no fault claim", which generally increases future premiums.