Angel Assitance/Help Hire

IWantToBeFree_2

My sister had an accident last week, where a car ran into the back of her. The third party has admitted liability & she has a letter from their insurance company stating so.

Her car is probably going to be written off due to the fact that its that old.

Her insurance company have set her up with Angel Assistance and Help Hire, who have provided her with a hire car and also sorting out her personal injury claim. Angel are also sorting out repairs, or the write off of the car.

I'm quite sceptical about it all, especially one part of the letter that states that the other insurer may not pay out for the hire charges if they are in excess of the value of her car, which they clearly will be as the hire charges are nearly £90 a day (absolutely ridiculous) and her car is probably not worth much than that, she paid £370 for it a year ago.

Obviously they make you sign an agreement which states that after 51 weeks you could be liable for the charges if they cannot recover them from the third party insurer.

Any advice on dealings with these companies would be very gratefully received.

V_tricky

Hi,

Angel Assistance/Helphire are a very big and established company

The third party insurers will pay for Helphire's bill based on the Association of British Insurers General Terms of Agreement (ABI GTA).

Details of what is expected is in the Documentation section on their website, and the maximum car hire settlement rates are in a different one, which sets out how much Helphire (and the other first tier providers) agree to charge for each type of vehicle, regardless of what the credit agreement says is the rate of daily hire.

There is some query whether she's actually entitled to a like for like vehicle - this has, and continues to be argued out between all credit hire companies, and insurers.

What helphire do with the remainder of their fees, or what happens when the insurers negotiate fewer days than was hired, or a lower rate vehicle, I honestly don't know - although I've never heard of them actually claiming the difference back off the hirer.

The only other thing I would add here is that if she received a letter from the other persons insurer offering her the use of their services including car hire, and she's chosen to go with Helphire, the insurer are within their rights to say to Helphire that she hasn't mitigated her losses, and will then only pay whatever their own suppliers (at a discounted rate) would have paid.

All in all, I don't think that they're too bad to deal with, but they're not a small fly-by-night company by any stretch of the imagination.

As her car is worth so little, the insurers WILL be asking why she didn't just buy a new car to mitigate her loss. The average hire for a total loss case is about 30 days. I would make sure that you know what happens if the inevitable happens, and the insurers only pay for £500 worth of hire, or offer 30 days hire at the lowest ABI rate. Will she have to pay the remainder back to Helphire? I doubt it, but then I can't see why they would get people to sign such credit agreements and then not enforce them.