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Car hire prang, but excess applied twice, can they do that?
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deanogiraffe
Posts: 17 Forumite
in Motoring
Hello,
So rented a 9 seater van for a week. No problems until the last day when parked in a multi story car park. The car park was easy to enter but on exit the exit was one of those ridiculously tight concrete spirals. The van was about 12-15 foot long and I managed to scrape both sides of the car at the same time.
We had insurance with the rental company with an excess of 1150 pounds. We also had excess insurance with icarhireinsurance.com up to 6,000 pounds, so theoretically everything should be covered. When we dropped the car off, after we mentioned we had third party excess coverage, the guy suddenly said the excess would be charged twice, as its "two separate incidents". We said no, it was one incident, both scrapes happened at the same time. He said it didn't matter and because one scrape was on one side of the van and one scrape was on the other, it counted as 2 incidents, so the excess would be applied twice!! So 1150 x 2 = 2300 pounds was charged to our card.
icarhireinsurance should cover it all, but we are now wondering if they legally can apply an excess charge twice and if they just did it to minimise their loses (which I guess is obvious that they did). In hindsight I am kicking myself that I didn't refuse and ask to speak to the manager about applying the excess x 2, but in that situation I am worried if I am 'difficult' they will be 'difficult' in return and maybe jack up the cost of the repairs etc.
Any thoughts?
So rented a 9 seater van for a week. No problems until the last day when parked in a multi story car park. The car park was easy to enter but on exit the exit was one of those ridiculously tight concrete spirals. The van was about 12-15 foot long and I managed to scrape both sides of the car at the same time.
We had insurance with the rental company with an excess of 1150 pounds. We also had excess insurance with icarhireinsurance.com up to 6,000 pounds, so theoretically everything should be covered. When we dropped the car off, after we mentioned we had third party excess coverage, the guy suddenly said the excess would be charged twice, as its "two separate incidents". We said no, it was one incident, both scrapes happened at the same time. He said it didn't matter and because one scrape was on one side of the van and one scrape was on the other, it counted as 2 incidents, so the excess would be applied twice!! So 1150 x 2 = 2300 pounds was charged to our card.
icarhireinsurance should cover it all, but we are now wondering if they legally can apply an excess charge twice and if they just did it to minimise their loses (which I guess is obvious that they did). In hindsight I am kicking myself that I didn't refuse and ask to speak to the manager about applying the excess x 2, but in that situation I am worried if I am 'difficult' they will be 'difficult' in return and maybe jack up the cost of the repairs etc.
Any thoughts?
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Comments
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You wouldnt have hit both sides at the very same moment though.Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...0
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"The van was about 12-15 foot long" So up to 6" longer than my little 307cc.0
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What does the policy say? Is it per damaged area or per claim or per incident?
Anyway, isn't an excess a "you pay the first £x of any claim" rather than "you pay us £x for every incident regardless of costs involved".
Yes I know - insurance companies will claim periods the vehicle is off the road getting repairs but in the event of it being classed as 2 separate incidents, they wouldn't incur those losses twice, only once. Plus I would expect it to be limited to the time the vehicle was actually getting repairs - theres no reason a scrape would stop them hiring the vehicle out.
OP, worst case scenario I would exhaust their complaints procedure and then exhaust the procedure of the financial ombudsman also. Assuming all this took place in the UK of course.You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride0 -
So if you ran into the back of another car and the car behind you hit your rear end is that classed as two acidents? i think the hire company are trying it on.0
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