Long story short(ish), got rear-ended over a year ago. Was clearly the other person’s fault & he admitted as much. My insurer (AA) put me onto a company called Claimfast (they were very keen to offload me to this other company), who were offering a hire car of similar quality to my own and I could have it quickly, which obviously was an attractive proposition when faced with my car being off the road for a while to be repaired.

All went ok until the other person’s insurers decided (quite rightly to my mind) that the £3500+ hire car bill was a little excessive! The damage to my car was minor…£700 bumper repair, but it took quite a while. So now the whole thing is going to court where I’ll have to defend my requirement of a hire car…though I don’t want to defend the extortionate charges! Clearly, Claimfast make their money through a massively inflated hire charge, which I’m sure in the big picture makes all our premiums higher. The small print of the deal you sign with Claimfast when you enter the hire agreement is that you are in no way liable for the costs if they can’t recover them from the at-fault party, but you do have to assist them in any legal action should the other side refuse to pay. This is fine as I understood this when I signed.

Anyway, I’m curious whether anyone else has had dealings with Claimfast before? They appear to be a fairly pushy organisation. I had a bloke on the phone this morning asking me to confirm that 10 pages of blurb I received literally 2 minutes earlier was accurate…he even wanted to stay on the phone as I looked through the witness statement that they had prepared for me so I could confirm all was accurate. Erm, no, I’ll be running this past my solicitor thanks. Lesson learned, will not be fobbed off onto an organisation like that again if I’m ever involved in an accident, however attractive the deal sounds.

there’s loads of organisations that do this kinda thing. I would just ask them how to defend the cost, as you’re now doing your dirty work for them?

You’re lucky you’re not liable for the cost if they can’t recover it – a lot of similar companies have a different policy

have to defend my requirement of a hire car

Surely it’s thmem going to court as the claim is subrogated and it’s up to them to defend their offer of a car to you unless you demanded one?

Bloke at work had a small accident which required some bumper work. He accepted the offer of the claim being handed to one of those companies as he was told his excess would be claimed back. When he presented the motor at the garage for the repair work to be carried out he was offered a hire car which he declined (was close to the station and he gets the train in every day). The garage told him that if he declined the hire car then the claim management co would probably drop the claim as it wouldn’t be profitable for them. So he took the hire car but left it on the garage forecourt all day. I think the hire rate was over £100 / day.

No wonder insurance premiums keep rising.

Swings and roundabouts.
My case is in court tomorrow. Was squashed by a pallet shoved off the back of a lorry after being asked to assess it and steady it.
Got concussed, internal bleeding, cut face, broken glasses, hurty back and arms, couldn’t ride for nearly two months and was totally blanked by the company concerned, so I fed it to the Alsations.
In court because the defendants insurance company hasn’t provided any documentation within the legal time requirements.
Apart from the injuries, I lost £1700 that day alone as I couldn’t attend an instalation and the customer has never used me since.

I have just been on the phone to the same company! Last winter in the snow and ice a van collided with mine at very slow speeds did no damage to mine (rear end) and cracked his indicator. He is now claiming the accident was my fault and wants money from my insurance & he now has a witness!

every time I get a letter from them it is threatening action as I failed to reply to a previous letter, though they never send the first letter.

It is very frustrating 🙁

Just rang my solicitor and it looks like it might just get thrown out, as the driver is not accepting liability and the costs would make it not worth persuing.
I wish my luck would change.

on the OP

AFAIK you have to mitigate your loss and costs so if the hire charges aren’t reasonable, the court could throw them out or reduce them.
Luckily the [strike]ambulance chasers[/strike] loss adjusters that the AA sold your claim to will take any loss for you

How long did the repair take to get a £3,500 hire bill!?

Cheers for the comments chaps. Sorry to hear about your accident, Oldgit, that sounds proper crap 🙁 . Yours too supertramp.

It took nearly 30 days to complete the repair on my car…took a while to get a part or something if I recall correctly. At over £300+vat a day for the hire car (a 3-yr old Lexus IS250), it’s clear that Claimfast must have been making a LOT of money on the deal.

Surely it’s thmem going to court as the claim is subrogated and it’s up to them to defend their offer of a car to you unless you demanded one?

Well, this is where I’m unsure of what I’m getting myself in to, and why I’m going to run this past our solicitor. Claimfast have drawn up a witness statement for me to sign that contains stuff like “I needed a vehicle for social & domestic use”, “there were no other vechicles available to me” etc etc. I’m editing a couple…eg occasionally my wife’s car was available to me, but not regularly enough to fulfill my requirements. “My” witness statement also states that “I would like to claim interest on the damages pursuant to Section 69” blah blah. Actually, if it’s down to me, I don’t want to claim interest as I think the hire charge takes the piss already, but I’m not sure if I can say that. Seems weird to be honest, someone else drawing up a statement for me to sign as if I drew it up myself.

The problem with the “non fault accident management” companies, is that they make most of their income (if not all of their income) from hiring a car to the innocent motorist, at extortionate daily rates, knowing that the insurance company will pick up the bill!

The accident management companies deal with the whole claim, rather than your own insurance company (Although your own insurance company make a fee/commission for directing you towards the accident management company). As the accident management company only make money from car hire, they encourage the bodyshops to take their time in repairing your vehicle. Obviously their hire charges are a lot more than if you hired directly from the likes of Hertz/Avis etc. The accident management companies are only interested in your case where the other motorist is 100% at fault.

Ultimately we are all paying for these accident management companies in our insurance premiums!

The insurance companies could cut out these accident management companies by providing you with a hire car directly in the event of a non fault accident. They could even do a deal directly with the big hire companies, so that their costs could be massively reduced.

Although (I’m guessing here) the accident management companies are probably owned by the insurance companies!

Yep, I’m frankly ashamed to have been a part of this, but there was no indication of the hire cost until the car was on my driveway and I had no other means of useful transport (not including bikes, and I live in a rural area). My insurance company were very keen to palm me off on Claimfast, suggesting I’d get a like for like car immediately, or if I declined then maybe they could get me a Ford Ka type vehicle in a week or so. Over the past 12 months I’ve learned what a shocking racket this whole thing is, but unless legislation comes in to prevent it, I can’t imagine anyone without prior knowledge of the practice would refuse the Claimfast (or similar) option, given the persuasive argument from the insurer.

£300 + VAT / day! FFS.