Insurance claim

[jaycee401]

someone reversed their car into mine yesterday, i was stationery at the time (hand brake on), in a car park waiting to park and the car in front reversed straight into the front of mine, she basically slammed it into reverse and never looked behind her! She gave me her details and she took a photo of the damage to my car. I went straight home and rang my insurers, almost immediatley I received a call to say I had a valid claim from her insurers for both car and personal injury, this was from Minster insurance, although my insurance is thru marks and spencer. i gave them all the details and she said i will receive a call from drive assist and also from a personal injury lawyer. My insurance policy permits a courtesty car and this morning i reveived a call from drive assist who went thru all details and said i can claim a courtesty car thru them, basically i will enter into a credit agreement which will be compensated thru the other persons insurance and if my insurance company rings me for infor i have to pass the details onto drive assist and they will deal with all questions etc. I am now waiting for the confirmation email from drive assist but just want to check with anyone who can help whether this is the right thing to enter into, having never been in this situation before, thanks

[gingejbee]

This sounds a bit complicated. When similar happened to me (years ago), the body-shop repairing my car simply loaned me one of their cars.

[Barmaid]

Credit hire has pretty much replaced "courtesy cars". Whereas once your insurance company arranged for a car from their own fleet or the repairing garage, now it is largely done through credit hire. It is quite normal.

How it works is that you hire on credit for up to 52 weeks (ie so you don't pay for the hire charges up front). Then the credit hire company attempts to recoup the hire charges from the other side.

This is probably one of the biggest areas of road traffic litigation today.

You have a duty to mitigate your loss and should only take credit hire if you really need the car while yours is being repaired and if you can't afford to hire on the ordinary hire market. If you do take the credit hire car, you can expect (whether the other side admits liability or not) to have to go to Court to enable the credit hire company to recoup their losses from the other side. The other side normally challenge the need to hire, the rate, the period, the enforceability of the agreement and anything else they can think of.

If you lose though, you won't have to pay the charges since you should have an insurance policy through the credit hire company which backs you. It's just whether you can deal with the hassle of going to Court.

[exdc]

Barmaid, very interesing post and I would have never thought this to be one of the biggest areas of r/t litigation today.

[jaycee401]

thanks for the answers, I need a car to get to work but the car is stll drivable, though it does need repairing, my son who is a mechanic has looked at the car and said the bumper will need replacing and both wings and bonnet have been knocked out of line, you can see the gap between them, the steering is also pulling to one side. when i took out the insurance with M&S i presumed i would of got a courtesy car from them. I am loathe to take out any credit agreement, if I as to hire a car myself could i then claim this back from the other sides insurers once they admit liability? am I best to instruct a no-one no fee solicitor rather than go down the route of drive assist, i presume the injury lawyer will come from them too?

[Barmaid]

The difficulty with hiring the car yourself is that if the other side fail to admit liability and fib, you will be out of pocket. I don't know if DA provide injury lawyers - best ask them. Were you actually injured though? Sounds like a relatively low impact shunt to me.

[jaycee401]

She reversed back with quite a force, and my shoulder hurts, im more concerned at just getting the car repaired and her admiting it was her fault.

[twix123]

Being self employed and needing a car for business, I have always taken out additional insurance covering a guaranteed replacement car in the case of a accident. Twice I've had non fault accidents and in each case Drive Assist were named on my policy to supply the replacement car while mine was being repaired. As I drive a medium sized automatic, Drive Assist supplied the smallest automatics on their books, which were Mercedes E series, which didn't come cheap! In each case the at fault driver's insurance companies paid up without a quibble and I did not need to go to court to justify the expense, even though Drive Assist was acting on my behalf.

Had I relied on the repairing garage to supply the replacement vehicle, I was told that it would have been a manual VW Polo.

If the steering of you car is pulling to one side, I think that you should not drive it in its current state, but take up the replacement car offer instead if this has come through the other party's insurers. As Barmaid says, if you were to hire a car yourself, you may not get a full refund of the costs.

Have you informed your insurers, Marks & Spencer, of this accident, as their Claims Department should be handling the negotiations with the other party's insurers and Drive Assist. Don't go to a No Win No Fee solicitor!

The Office of Fair Trading will be looking into the cost of credit hire replacement as part of their wider investigations into the cost of car insurance in the new year, as this along with injury claims and fraud has caused the large increase in insurance over the last few years.

[jaycee401]

thanks twix, we have now received a car tr drive assist on the same basis as you have just said, I have reported it all to M&S and they are dealing with it. the person responsible has not reported the incident yet to her insurers, but mine have assured me they can see she is def insured and they are chasing her and her insurers.

[jaycee401]

had m & s insurers on phone, they have now arranged for my car to be picked up and repaired i have to pay the £250 excess but he told me once otherside admits liability i can claim this back.

[twix123]

Hi Jaycee, glad to hear that you've got yur replacement car ok. It seems strange that Minster Insurance contacted you unless they are your actual insurers, Marks & Spencer only act as brokers.

In your original post you state that you had a call to say you had a valid claim from her insurers for both car and personal injury, although your first post of today states that the other driver hasn't reported the accident yet, therefore I now take it that Minster are your insurers and Drive Assist are named on your policy as suppliers of the courtesy car.

It is quite normal to have to pay your excess yourself, to the repairers, when your car is returned and then claim it back from the third party's insurers when settlement is made.

[jaycee401]

Hi twix, sorry for the confusion, this is really confusing! She has not reported it to her insurers. Minster law are acting for me on a personal injury claim, drive assist were given my details from marks and spencers, now because she has not been in touch with her insurers, drive assist have passed me on to aegas who my insurance is with (via m&s) and they are now arranging for my car to be repaired, rather than waste time waiting for the other party to get in touch, they wanted my car repaired, in the meantime drive assist are persuing the other party, and once liability has been accepted by the person at fault they will then claim everything back for me. Both Minster law and drive assist came via my marks and spencer policy. Hope this makes sense, its certainly confused me. From what i can gather drive assist got me a hire car in the hope the other driver would come forward and admit liability, if she had then i would of had my car taken away and a courtesy car dropped at the same time and not paid an excess, but because she hasn't then i now have to go down this route!

[oran15018]

You should take the help of loss assessors who will negotiate with people from insurance company and help you get the compensation that you deserve. They have good legal knowledge about this field and will correct you if you have made any mistake while filling the insurance claim.