Hire Car And Holiday Insurance: Car Robbed And No Payout...

[corinthitims]

Hi,

First of all thanks for taking the time to read this post, after recently being told of this site I thought I would put up my story to see if anyone could offer any insight/advise to the issues we've been running into for a claim with our holiday insurers following a car break in, in the USA.

I'll try and be as efficient with my words as possible, so here we go...

Our car was robbed when parked in Memphis, TN. We had briefly parked up near a tourist attraction (for approx. 45 mins) but sadly it appears someone was watching us and used this time to smash a passenger window and pull out various bags which included all my clothes, a laptop, some jewellry, passports and cash.

When we returned back to the car we reported the incident to the police, and "luckily" a nearby shop had CCTV trained on our car and captured it all on video. The investigation in ongoing but we have been told it's unlikely any of our items will be recovered.

After dealing with the hire car company to get a replacement car, getting our report sorted and buying new clothes I contacted the insurance company to inform them of the incident.

Around 30 minutes later they called me back to say we weren't covered because (a) they don't cover valuables left in cars and (b) because the clothes and passports (aren't classed as valuables) weren't stored in a locked compartment, out of sight.

At this point I informed the booking agent for the hire car - this was because on collection of the car around a week previous they had messed up our booking (which was done 3 months earlier).

We had booked an SUV with a lockable and out of sight boot but they had given our car to someone else and told us we had to either wait (with no confirmed time of when one would be ready) because there had sold all but one of their cars available in the whole of the city, or use the 'car' they had left which was a large Dodge Ram pick up truck (with a rear passenger cabin but no lockable boot, instead a open bed back).

Given the choice of delaying our holiday indefinitely, or taking a car which was unsuitable (but hey it was a car) I opted to take the pick up truck and go on our way.

So that leads me to my question.

I have an insurance company not wanting to payout (which when looking at their terms appear to be within the rules of the insurance) but the only reason we weren't able make sure our items were secure and out of sight, therefore honouring the terms of the insurance was due to the fact the hire car company had messed up the booking.

I'm currently in talks with the broker to say that I expect them to cover the costs of all the lost goods but so far have had little success. I wanted to know what people on here thought and if they had any tips or legal advise?

I'm not speaking to my holiday insurer at the moment as I don't think that is going to be fruitful, hence my focus on the the car side of things but please do advise otherwise if I have missed something.

I know this is quite complicated but as I am sure you can all understand, I've lost over £5k of stuff and the thought of not being able to claim any of that back because of someone messing up my car booking is rather frustrating.

Thanks all!!

[TheChair]

I can't see that you have a leg to stand on.
You agreed to a non-secure vehicle because you didn't want to be inconvenienced.
As a result you didn't conform to the terms of the insurance.
On what grounds can you possibly expect the insurance company to waive their normal conditions?

[corinthitims]

@TheChair - thanks for your reply. I understand your response however my main query is one of whether I can claim against the hire car booking agent.

The argument is simply, if they had not messed up my booking and honoured the contract I had with them then this whole incident could have been avoided.

[TheChair]

Sorry, I thought you wanted to argue with the Insurance company.
Unfortunately, I doubt you'll have more luck with the Car Hire mob, as they will point out that you accepted the alternative vehicle voluntarily, rather than wait (or cancel the deal and go elsewhere). Morally, I agree that the fault is theirs, but legally, I don't think so. Unless you are in a position to bring some kind of major pressure to bear, (eg you have an in with the media or PR business), I suspect that you are on a loser.

[Dodger666]

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't have left those items you lost on view in an unsecured car in this country never mind a foreign one.

Were you on your way to your hotel? If so I would have gone there first and put valuables somewhere safe before going sightseeing.

[corinthitims]

@Dodger666, whilst in hindsight I would be inclined to agree sadly because we were on a road trip throughout the States there was no real option of leaving things at the hotel, or checking into our other one earlier.

It's a really unfortunate set of circumstances which I feel could have been avoided by simply being given the right car as we ordered.

It should be said that the items on 'view' were behind blacked out windows and strapped in. The CCTV saw the robber straining to see what was inside and it took him around 45 second to just get one case out of the car.

@TheChair - with the risk of sounding like a total pretentious *** I do work in 'the media' but I've always be hesitant to throw that into the mix as the risk of sounding like I mention above. How would you advise to use this to my advantage?

[bednobs]

if i am reading your question correctly the car issue is a red herring. If the insurance does not cover valuables stolen from cars, as you state, then your chance are zero as your valuables were stolen from a car