Embroiled in the car insurance credit hire scam

Poopscoop
…How is this crap not illegal?

Insurance companies are run by the same people who have bought our politicians…

It is a difficult one. I would still be on the phone to the insurer syaing along the lines of ‘you told me to use this firm, you sort it’. but that does not help with the immediate issue. As I say though there is no way the FOS would find you liable for the hire charges – at the worst your insurer would have to stump up.

Also, regardless of who paid for the hire car initially, it is what is called an uninsured loss, but one that you can still claim from the other party if they were at fault. So, even if it is decided you could afford to pay the hire car costs yourself you would still be claiming from the other side so it is all just a bit pointless and it is just the other ins co playing hardball.

And no, they wouldn’t track down every account but your CMC needs to be in the strongest position possible.

So, even if it is decided you could afford to pay the hire car costs yourself you would still be claiming from the other side

this isn’t true. If i crash a baggy old micra (non fault) and rent a rolls royce for 3 months at a cost of £20k I can’t claim it, despite it being an uninsured loss. That’s a big exageration, but you have to demonstrate prudance in minimising your losses (which is hard to do if you could have paid for a car rental at normal rates, but paid 3x that much), and unfortunately there’s nothing the FOS can do about it. The OP has entered into a contract with the credit hire company that has legally nothing to do with their insurance company, and under the terms of that hire I expect they are required to do anything that is asked by the hire companies lawyers to try to recover the funds from the 3rd party.

The T&C of the hire company normally states they will only come after the OP if they do not cooperate, but really it always seems to come to some ‘settlement’ 3 days before the court date (presumably for some number that is somewhere inbetween what they OP could have hired a car for, and what the car hire company is trying to claim).

The OP has entered into a contract with the credit hire company that has legally nothing to do with their insurance company, and under the terms of that hire I expect they are required to do anything that is asked by the hire companies lawyers to try to recover the funds from the 3rd party.

The T&C of the hire company normally states they will only come after the OP if they do not cooperate, but really it always seems to come to some ‘settlement’ 3 days before the court date (presumably for some number that is somewhere inbetween what they OP could have hired a car for, and what the car hire company is trying to claim).

There is no way on earth FOS would side with the ins co / CMC here. As a consumer purchaser of insurance you would be classed as ‘unsophisticated’ ie – not expected to know the minutae of such things and if your ins co told you to use a CMC and you followed that instruction and took the CMCs offer of a car – particuarly when you have a courtesy car extension on your policy, there is no way they would expect you to stand to it.

I have met with senior people from the FOS and discussed in detail their adjutication process and understand it very well.

Yes, you are correct about if you hired a Rolls Royce etc but that is not relevant in this case – the OP was acting on the instructions of their ins co and had no reason at all to suspect anything would go wrong. As this is an ins co appointent CMC then if they were worried about mitigating losses then they should flag this with the policyholder and they did not.

The insurance company have fired my complaint back at me saying my complaint is actually with the CMC not them, so they consider the matter closed.

I’ve reopened the complaint making clear it is with them, they didn’t offer me an alternative course of action, I was given no choice but to go with the CMC and now I’m stuck on this path. It’s that initial move by them that I’m complaining about, and now the fact they’ve tried to brush me off as well!

I know doing it on the phone would offer more immediate results, but I’m stuck in a shift pattern of long days at work at the moment and can’t squeeze in what will no doubt be a bloody long long tiresome call. First day off is Friday so I know what I’ll be doing then! 👎

I’ve reopened the complaint making clear it is with them, they didn’t offer me an alternative course of action, I was given no choice but to go with the CMC and now I’m stuck on this path. It’s that initial move by them that I’m complaining about, and now the fact they’ve tried to brush me off as well!

I find that very hard to believe as they’d be working to an approved script. What is usually used to funnel people towards CMC’s in non-fault accidents is the requirement for you to pay your own excess to claim on your own policy, which will subsequently be reimbursed once the claim is paid by the other insurer. CMC’s are presented as the “easy” option with no cost to you.

The request for the financial records comes with a guide stating if we don’t include EVERYTHING, including credit cards and even accounts with a zero balance, then it’s a default on our part and the other side automatically wins. How much should I believe that do you think? Can they/would they actually track down every account I have!?

Why do they need this information?

I’d be very loathe to provide it as it has no relevance to me as my relationship is with the insurers. Not to mention the risks of future phishing attempts, identity fraud etc

And no, they wouldn’t track down every account but your CMC needs to be in the strongest position possible.

Why would the claimants financial status change the CMC position? It’s irrelevant to the facts regarding the loss and expenses incurred

Probably not much use to the OP now but for general information Admiral have form with this type of thing.
story from a couple of years back

I’ve been wary of these claims management companies with hire cars ever since a work colleague was caught up with the same problem a number of years ago.

What actually happened was his claims management company hired him a similar car (Mercedes C class) and because his car had a sat nav insisted also on hiring him a Tom Tom on a daily rate.

They were charging a stupid amount of money for this, I can’t remember exactly but it was North of £250 a day. Not suprisingly the party at faults insurers balked at this and refused to pay it. (he also had signed papers saying he was liable for it if the other sides insurers didn’t pay)

Eventually after a long time and several postponements he had to go to court over it. The judge sided with him and told the other sides insurers to pay up.

There was no talk over his financial circumstances, it is completely irrelevant to expenses occurred as a result of the accident, as someone mentioned above.

They’re arguing I could have afforded to pay the hire charges up front so I have to prove otherwise. If I don’t provide the docs, it’s a default and auto win for the other side.

Why should you have had to pay up front?

It sounds like you need proper legal advice.

It seems if you could afford to pay for car hire then all the claims company gets is the market hire rate. Which can be a fraction. This case the claim was £28k for a 78 day hire. Amount awarded at market rates – £4k.

https://www.weightmans.com/insights/a-common-sense-approach-to-basic-hire-rates-bhr-evidence/

So a claims company will want to prove a claimant could not afford to hire up front. Hence bank statements and other financial details needed.

If they are arguing that you could have afforded to hire hence needing to see documents then surely the rebuttal must be
You didmt tell me this was a cost to me and what that cost breakdown consists off therefore i was misinformed that this was a courtesy car that my insurance approved of, not a hire car at an exhorted rate via a 3rd party claims co that my insurance knew jack all about

it’s a default and auto win for the other side

says who, the CMC?

It sounds like you need proper legal advice.

very much this ^

do you have legal motor protection with this reputable insurance co? I’d asking to use this if you do

I would tell them it’s irrelevant whether you could afford the hire car. It was equivalent to the car that the third party damaged (so wasn’t excessive), it was provided to you, as per the policy terms, through the CMC that your insurer asked you to use. You have no contract with the CMC, only with your insurance company and (under duress?) with the car hire company. Bang it back to your insurer and tell them you expect them to sort it out – the policy says they or their agent will give you a hire car, and that’s what happened – it’s up to them to sort it out and indemnify you against the loss you’re insured against, not escalate that loss and dump it on you. Even if you could have paid the hire car charges, you’d still have had a claim on the insurer for a refund. You are being scammed and they shouldn’t be complicit in that scam. Tell them you’ll be making a formal complaint if they don’t sort it, because making a formal complaint to them allows you to go to the Ombudsman if the don’t resolve that complaint.

You have no contract with the CMC,

I would be suprised if the CMC did not get a contract agreed with them before arranging a hire car.

OP said ” I know we we’ve signed documents which basically screw us over and we are liable for paying if the other side don’t pay up.”

That said while they are leeches I can’t say I have heard of many cases where the driver got left with the bill if he cooperated with claims process.

I’ve been through this. I phoned my broker, they put me on to the CMC by default. There was no other way of doing it presented to me.

It went to court, after eighteen months, and was a total waste of my time. You have to go, and you do have to give them the bank statements so the other party can go through them with a fine tooth comb to see if you had the money to rent a car yourself. You’ve signed a contract to that effect.

The CMC won. I had a small amount of savings that would have covered it but it was allocated for a house deposit. The other argument was that I considered my broker and the CMC they appointed to be reputable and acting on my behalf, while the other party’s insurer were unlikely to act in my interests. I came away with a wasted day in court being questioned as though I was a criminal, none of my incidental losses awarded and a happy CMC.

Start making as many notes as you can about when you were referred to the CMC and why you took up their offer, not the other party’s. Also, if the other party phoned you after you spoke to the CMC to offer you a hire car, tell your CMC as apparently this is frowned upon.

Good luck. It’s total shite.

I’d be onto Watchdog and that Matt Albright fella.

Never heard of this predatory tactic before and I reckon it should be more widely publicised.

Looking into it recently, looks like it’s been a thing for a long time! I’ve obviously banged on about it to work colleagues etc and no one has heard of it or expect that this could happen.

I would be suprised if the CMC did not get a contract agreed with them before arranging a hire car.

Yeah I’ve signed saying I agree to the CMC’s terms. Obviously, I shouldn’t have done this and I now know how naive that action was. But at the time, you’re kind of funneled towards it with no other better option. It’s either that or don’t get the car fixed or a retirement car in the meantime. Plus they actively told me not to disk to the other insurers, when in reality, it sounds like that’s exactly what I should’ve done.

Plus they say at the time I’ll be liable to pay if the other side don’t pay up, but they had already admitted fault and were going along with the claim, agreeing to repair the car. I had no idea they could say “yeah we’re at fault but we’re not paying for the hire car.”

@munrobiker sounds a bloomin nightmare. We’re getting all our statements together at the moment. There’s still a chance it might all get sorted, I feel pretty negative about it though.

I feel pretty negative about it though.

I felt rotten towards the end of it. There were these two big companies slugging it out and I as an individual was the one who would always lose out. What happened to me was completely inconsequential to them. It made me feel worthless.

@richardkennerley Has this been resolved yet? I had to call my insurance company today (Hastings Direct) after getting hit from behind. When this topic came up I specifically mentioned this, and the chap on the phone said yes I’m being offered a hire car which the other party would pay for if I’m not to blame. I still declined the car and have been offered a courtesy car instead.

@tails no it’s all quiet at the moment, no further along.

Yes, sounds like you would end up in a similar situation there. You think they’ll pay for the car because they are to blame, but they dispute it and you end up paying.

Update! –

Just realised I never updated following our court date, i’ve been waiting for some sort of Official closure, but I’ve never received anything.

We were due to appear (via teams) to be questioned about the circumstances around why we took the hire car. As I’d dealt with all the admin around this whole thing, I wanted to make the appearance, but as my wife was technically the policy holder, it had to be her.

She works in a school so doesn’t get any annual leave, although she was granted a bit of time to leave the office. I was going to sit with her for moral support! The claims management company said we’d only be needed for 20-30 minutes.

Before I was due to meet my wife, a barrister called to brief her. I said sorry, I’m not with her yet, I can pass on the information. She said that’s not ideal and asked if we were available for the whole 2-3 hours the hearing would take. I said no, we weren’t told that, 30 minutes at the most. The barrister said we’d best reschedule. This is 45 minutes before the hearing starts.

She called me back 10 mins later and says they’ve settled it because of the difficulties around getting my wife out of work for the hearing!

So after all that, almost 2 years of dicking around, involving solicitors, barristers, arranging a court hearing, all the documents and statements we provided…. 30 minutes before the actual hearing they all just went “oh forget it, too much liked hard work!”

Neither my insurance company (admiral) or the claims management company (auxilis) have been in touch to confirm its all over. They’ve just stopped emailing me! Been 2 months since the court date.

TLDR – it all got dropped at the last second because we were awkward about appearing in court.

That’s good news.

How did your complaint against your insurance company go? You said a while back that they’d given you no choice about the route to take, and you were re-opening your complaint?

The complaint didn’t go anywhere. They basically came back and (unsurprisingly) said they hadn’t done anything wrong. In hindsight, what I would complain about is that my insurance company told me not to speak to the other sides company, but what I should’ve done is let them handle it all from the start and not really involved my own company. At this point, it’s not worth the stress of trying to raise a complaint now, it’s best put to bed for our sanity!

What are you supposed to do when the “legitimate” companies are indistinguishable from the criminals?

Reading this makes me feel glad I didnt go for claims management when I got rear ended because the 10 pages of paperwork was taking me too long to read! The other persons insurance fixed my car quicker than I would have taken for the paperwork!