[Closed] HELP! Someone has damaged our hire car...

Not without Police involvement.

Surly you have to inform the Police for it to be a legitimate claim?

I imagine that you'll have to settle with EuropCar, then claim off your 3rd party insurer in any case. Will they then go after the culprit? Don't know. They might not even have been insured.

Police are the only way you have any chance of tracing the culprit, and it's only by putting the liability on them that you can take it of yourself. If you don't at least try to minimise your liability your excess insurer may refuse to pay out.

I imagine that you’ll have to settle with EuropCar

This. Then you'll have to claim through your excess insurance provider. If the accident wasn't your fault then your excess insurer will want the police report / crime number or similar so you'll need to report it to the police anyway to avoid your insurers wriggling out of payment.

That's how it works.

Report the incident to the police, claim through your insurance with EuroCar and hope they can trace the moped owner.

Okay, thank you all.

Just wanted to make sure this was the best and only way.
The difficulty in getting through to the rental helpline and the lack of ‘enthusiasm’ from the person we eventually spoke to just made me question their advice.
And as almost always the case... sound advice on STE 😉

Thanks again!

I don't think tracking down the moped owner is necessary or a requirement...Europecar have better things to do than to waste their time tracking down some clumsy yoof (who's probably uninsured anyway) or half p'ssed tourist on a rented moped and the Majorcan Police certainly won't have any interest in even attempting to make any efforts to track them down. Europecar probably won't even repair the damage if it is just cosmetic bumps and scrapes...they won't take the car out of service for a day or so that it takes to repair the damage...they will 'sweat' the asset, make their money out of it and offload it as cheaply as possible. Car supermarkets rely on a steady stream of cars and rental companies provide a good source of cheap cars for them...they'll pick the cars up, repair any damages and sell them on.

Sounds like you're fully insured so shouldn't have any problems.

Sounds like you’re fully insured so shouldn’t have any problems.

Except for the expensive excess you mean?

Except for the expensive excess you mean?

Depends on the policy

Aye they have by the balls as they will be deducting your card as we speak. Its like when you pick up a car it's so easy to not notice the scrapes and dents under artificial lights, you just want to head off as its been a long day with the early morning start but when you get time and notice things in the sunlight. Have you seen the cars in Pollensa, more damage than a Tom cats ears, they park bumper to bumper and an inch off the buildings, must be painful being a car mirror

Depends on the policy

What hire company doesn't have an excess?

i had this a couple of months back, but I didn't have any photos of the perpetrator.

Paid the £250 excess upfront, then when I got home I claimed on my 3rd party insurer. They paid up without too much faff - no police reports, i didn't even have a photo of the damage. I just sent them copies of the damage report and invoice from Avis, and a screenshot of my credit card bill to prove that I had actually paid it.

What hire company doesn’t have an excess?

I think the op has said he's got seperate excess insurance which will cover this, but as said he'll end up having to pay this and claim it back. Just had a quick look at my excess policy and it says report to police get incident number, details of department reported to and every other available piece of evidence to submit

Read your excess policy. They will usually have a helpline to call as well, and you may need to report it to them before reporting it anywhere else.

Car supermarkets rely on a steady stream of cars and rental companies provide a good source of cheap cars for them…they’ll pick the cars up, repair any damages and sell them on.

This. Where I work we take in large numbers* of Enterprise cars, which we store before they’re moved on to auction or direct to dealers. They frequently arrive with empty drink cans, bottles, food wrappers, etc, and go out the same way.
We don’t do any restoration work, unlike Motability cars, they’re sold on as seen, with whatever damage they may have suffered.
*We’ve been told roughly 8-900 next month...

Drac - the point of excess cover insurance is to cover the excess so you don't have any!

Thanks for pointing out the obvious TJ but not everyone takes our insurance on the insurance.

Drac, I read this bit in the OP and assumed it was to cover the excess.

Fortunately (I hope) I have taken out extra full insurance cover via a 3rd party.

I had no idea what extra full insurance was supposed to mean.

Yeah, I may have made the wrong assumption.

I don't think so scotroutes - seeing as the discussion was about excess cover insurance

I can’t help but feel they would just want you to follow a procedure that eventually gets you to pay the hefty rip-off excess.

Fortunately (I hope) I have taken out extra full insurance cover via a 3rd party.

You may not have Scotroutes having read it again.

Either way I'd be asking them to chase the other party insurance.

Do insurance companies ever actually "track anybody down" or do they just make you pay the excess and bump up your next premium? The "easy option"

Dunno about hire cars, but domestic insurers aren't detectives. Someone does a hit & run on your car, they class it as an own-fault incident as there's no third party to claim against. Zero shits given, they're quids in come renewal time.

Yep, some ****wit drives in to the back of your car when you’re stationary, your insurance goes up because they now know that you choose to go to a place where there’s been an accident.

Dunno about hire cars, but domestic insurers aren’t detectives. Someone does a hit & run on your car, they class it as an own-fault incident as there’s no third party to claim against. Zero shits given, they’re quids in come renewal time.

Exactly, some f*cker has driven into the side of our car and p!ssed off without bothering to stop. Damage to both wings and both doors, called insurance company, and despite being fully comp, it's a fault claim, so full excess to be paid, and NCB affected. Not hugely happy....

It could be worse.

This was Saturday night near were I live. A hire car, but the driver has hoofed it. I hope his card is charged for the full amount!

domestic insurers aren’t detectives.

I hate Admiral, they were awful in many ways, but to their credit when I got hit by a bus which drove off then the bus company denied the bus even being in the area, Admiral sent an investigator out to me (I still had the distinctive pink paint that had transferred from the bus smeared down my offside wing).

They also sent the investigator to the depot to examine the bus (I had the reg) did a bunch of measurements to the height of the damage etc, had the paint tested, then took the bus company to court to recover costs.