I,m pretty sure there are people on here that work in this field. Complicated one.

OH had another driver hit her from behind. Liability admitted and car repaired all fine.

Difficulties now as OH is being asked to attend court to explain why the hire car charges were so high (other party’s insurance refusing to pay). I am shocked at the practices that have been employed here. Her policy states very clearly that her insurer would provide a car to her in the event of this type of event – it also states that the car will be similar in size and transmission etc i.e. like for like.

OH’s insurers told her to go to a certain hire company in town and they (the car hire firm) have basically got her to sign on the dotted line for a “credit agreement” rental. It turns out that this means she is liable for these charges if the other insurance firm refuses to pay. This type of agreement also allows the car hire firm to charge whatever the hell they like – in this case £146 a day for a car that would normally rent at £58 a day.

None of this was explained to her and she assumed she was just there to pick up a hire car that the insurance company had provided. I know small print should have been read but we’re talking barely legible on this contract. To be fair to the OH she wouldn’t have had a clue about rental charges either. The result was that the car hire firm are asking for a settlement of over £1200 for a week’s hire!! The other insurance company are (not surprisingly) saying no!

The lawyers from her own insurer are now insisting that she attends court and also insisting that she provides bank statements to explain why she couldn’t afford to pay for a hire car herself and then simply claim it back. Obvioulsy she would have done this if she had known this might happen…

The lawyers are also asking her to sign to the fact that all of this HAD been explained to her i.e. they appear to be setting her up to take the financial hit that there own clients (OH’s insurers) created. This just smacks of a scam between her insurer and the hire car company to fabricate a situation where the “little person” ends up being raped for cash.

We intend to write to the lawyers, the OH’s insurers and the car hire company to dispute this claim. Also tempted to write to the opposing insurer and agree with them that the £1200 should have been limited to a reasonable figure.

Any advice on how to phrase any of these letters? IMO the OH’s insurers should not have been directing the OH to a car hire firm that uses these credit agreements – they should have simply provided a car and covered the costs. The car hire company is a clear case of mis-selling so a complaint followed by the Financial Ombudsman is the likely route but what about the lawyers? They claim that the OH has ‘promised’ to do everything to help them recover their client’s costs but surely this must be limited to a degree of ‘reasonable’ costs rather than practices that we think are borderline fraud?

Any suggestions? And yes I know she should have read the small print.