Icarinsurance problems

In January this year I hired a car from Santader airport in Spain from Goldcar. Later that week we were driving on a small country road when a local old lady came round a bend too fast and hit us head on causing extensive damage to the car. The collision was 100% her fault we had braked and come to a halt. Goldcar charged me €1,100 in excess. On returning to the UK I attempted to reclaim the money from icarinsurance, but they are refusing to pay as Goldcar has not provided me with a breakdown of the repair costs. I have emailed Goldcar, as have Halo (the claims servicing branch of icarinsurance), but they have not replied to any emails. Icarinsurance are now suggesting I complain about the lack of documentation via the European Car Hire complaint service ECRCS.EU but Goldcar are not a party to this association. Icarinsurance are telling me that it is in their Terms and Conditions that they will not pay out unless they receive a breakdown of the repair costs, but there appears to be no way of getting Goldcar to provide this. I am out of pocket €1,100 for a crash that clearly involved damage in excess of that. Do I have any rights? I subsequently hired another car from Goldcar who made it clear on that occassion that they would not provide any information to 3rd party insurers so that you need to buy Goldcar’s own vastly over-priced insurance to cover the excess.

Comments

  • You seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

    Other than what you've already done I'm unsure if you'll have much luck particularly with it being across countries and you'll have to weigh up the effort and cost of chasing vs likelihood of recovery.
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  • Simonne15
    Simonne15 Posts: 21
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    That's utterly frustrating. Without a local speaker to argue with the car hire company you are at a distinct disadvantage.
    Although many people tell us they have bought insurance in the UK to use when hiring cars abroad, its difficult to find anyone who has actually claimed and then had good service.
    Does anyone know of such examples please?
    I am considering the idea for a trip soon but don't know where to start. Given the dreadful experience of this MSE forumite, its clear that there are many loopholes some of which are unpredictable e.g. how the hire company will react once they have their money and don't have any further responsibility to the claimant.
  • Jlo31
    Jlo31 Posts: 130
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    I think if you have done everything in your power to get the breakdown in costs but failed then I think you should log an official complaint with ICarinsurance that they have asked for paperwork that you can't provide. If they don't honour the claim then go via the ombudsman route who will look at the whole case and make a decision on whether they should pay or not.
  • Zorillo
    Zorillo Posts: 774
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    Forumite
    A head on collision usually gets settled 50/50 anyway without conclusive evidence being provided, so the good news is you're probably only €550 out of pocket.

    Giving it appears to be the hire car company that is the problem here, why would you subsequently use them again?!
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