Wife involved in clear cut non-fault accident with witnesses and statement from guilty party to confirm. Pretty hefty damage to our car. But Mrs Wife fine, which is a relief as 8 months pregnant.

Police advised contact our insurers for recovery, did so, car now in drive awaiting next steps (our insurers ok with this). Need to get hire/courtesy car asap for wife to get back to work. To expedite things our insurers have passed us on to 3rd party Credit Hire Organisation called Albany Assistance, who also offer credit protection policy FOC. Is this normal? Should we not just claim from at fault driver’s insurance? Any experience here of using CHOs? The bit I’m really dreading is the battle over where to get the car fixed… first garage suggested was one in another galaxy… are we within our rights to push for local main dealer repairs (Late 2010 VW Passat, which until 16.30 this eve was as new with fvwsh)?

All tips, pointers, support and guidance welcome – I hate this stuff. Thanks!

PS – huge vote for Passat and modern technology here. A car pulled out on Mrs WJ who was travelling c. 50mph in NS zone, crash was a tbone. ABS, airbags and seatbelt tensioners are a world away from the pointy steering column of our late Mk1 GTi

I had a similarly clear cut accident a couple of years back. My own insurer were no use, just passed me round a loop of PI firms and very dodgey credit hire companies. Called the 3rd parties insurer direct, explained that my own guys were only going to push up the claim but that I’d rather play with a straight bat assuming I was treated fairly. They had an appropriate hire car on my drive next day and sent me to a well respected body shop.

As above, if liability is not being disputed, the other party’s insurers willl probably be happy to sort you out a hire car as it will cost them less.

Thank you that sounds ‘right’ to me… I’ve been led to believe that even talking to 3rd Party’s insurer could jeopardise our case somehow, but this is based vague statements from the CHO, who obviously have a vested interest.

Yep, approach 3rd party insurers as it’ll be cheaper for them to sort you out properly.

But if she’s 8-months pregnant what’s the rush to get back to work?

8-months pregnant what’s the rush to get back to work?

I have gently pushed that argument, but apparently “someone has to earn a decent wage to support my lifestyle…”

Sadly only a some of OH’s work is salaried, remainder on self employed basis.

Albany are Helphire. They’re a big credit hire firm and there should be plenty of info about them online. All the accident management firms are basically car hire firms that sort out accidents on your behalf. They can rack up stupid bills at above market rates and you can end up liable for them in extreme cases, as you’ve clearly not mitigated your losses.

We recently had a no fault accident, Europa Consultants from up near Bury sorted it out well for us. This is despite it being pretty obvious from the off that it was unlikely they could pick up much cash from the deal. You should be able to pick up their details off google or pistonheads.

I’ve worked in the insurance business in the past, and it’s just not worth the aggro diying a no fault claim. I certainly wouldn’t start it in your position – if the third party refuses to answer his insurers letters and calls, you could have stress and a broken car on the drive for a while. You could well be looking at a write off if the impact was at a decent speed and a lot of airbags went off. A lot of insurers will start with 70 something % of trade in value as a first offer, which is a complete joke – this would put the write off pay out around 50% of retail on an older car. I’ve posted more detail on the DIY route in the past if you want to look it up. If you want valuations, Glass’ can be had for free from Vauxhall’s trade in website, and CAP is freely available – these are the systems insurers use.

Some people will tell you that credit hire firms push up premiums, that they’re the root of all evil etc. but the other side is that they will get you the proper price for your car, and they’ll sort it with the minimum aggro for you.

Lawyer wise, if you need one, go with the solicitor provided by your insurance legal cover. If you didn’t take out legal cover, do take it out next time… Avoid solicitors with heavy success fees like the plague – if a lawyer has a 25% success fee, he needs to be 33% better than the free one from your insurance company before you even break even…

This is really helpful – thank you everyone!

Albany are Helphire. They’re a big credit hire firm and there should be plenty of info about them online. All the accident management firms are basically car hire firms that sort out accidents on your behalf. They can rack up stupid bills at above market rates and you can end up liable for them in extreme cases, as you’ve clearly not mitigated your losses.

This is becoming more of an issue with many insurers fighting the CH companies over excessive charging.

OP, some insurers have contracts with CH companies which mean they are responsible for the contract/agreement i.e. you do not sign any credit agreement and cannot be held responsible for any unrecovered charges – it is worth asking the question and, if relevant, get their confirmation in writing/by email before proceeding.

As Tron pointed out, delaying things can work against you from a loss mitigation perspective so it’s best to get onto it asap.

With regards to repairers, you should be able to get agreement from whichever insurers is paying for the repairs initially – in this case yours- to have the vehicle repaired where you want with the only proviso being that their costs are similar to one of their approved repairers (some put specific requirements in their policies but the legality of this has been questioned). The only other consideration here is that the approved repairer can probably begin work straight away whereas another may have to wait for an engineer from the insurance co to visit and authorise the work – this could be anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks depending on how busy they are at present.

Just re-reading my reply above and I’m not sure it’s hugely clear. My thoughts are do go with an accident management firm, but make sure it’s a sensible one, not a firm of mickey takers who say “German estate car, righto, Merc E320 arriving on your drive tomorrow AM”. If you can get by with a Fiesta or Focus hire car, tell them and keep the costs down…

Good advice above too from Nobby about your insurer potentially taking on all the liabilities via recommendation deals.

Oh, and one last point – don’t stick any more detail about the accident online. All sounds very clear cut in your case but it can bite people on the arse.

Deleted, double post

Glad to hear the wifes ok, nightmare scenario especially being pregnant (love the I have to work attitude, you made a far better choice than did I)

The other insurer will suggest (possible strongly) that you use a repairer suggested by them, you can ignore this and get the car fixed where you want, ie at VW or their recommended repairer. We’ve had a couple of times where we’ve had to do this but got what we wanted. We’ve had one difficult experience with replacement car as this was provided but as repair took a long time insurer/rental outfit tried to charge us, we refused and it wa sorted after some arguments.

Cheers everyone. We have avoided CHO, car’s at VW and as things are straightforward we’re claiming on our own policy. Hire car arrived, but going back as it stinks of stale smoke. We have found the whole experience to date quite stressful – there is a lot of pressure on you to make uninformed decisions in the first 48 hrs, on top of dealing with the ‘impact’ (arf) of the accident itself. Now older and wiser!