The car insurance information contained within these pages is based on information supplied by The Claims Guru, a site packed with useful information about the inner workings of insurance companies and their products.
Third Party Claims - Credit Hire
If you are in need of a hire vehicle owing to an accident that was someone elses fault - click here for details of credit hire
There are gaps in the policy cover you can buy and the losses you might sustain in an accident. Those losses not covered are called 'uninsured losses' because they are not insured. A few years ago, one of these gaps in cover was plugged by the hire car business.
If you go back to the1980's or earlier, and you wanted to hire a car and recover the cost from a negligent driver's insurer, you had to pay for it up front, obtain a receipt and then spend weeks, if not months waiting to get your money back.
"I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows. "
Extracts taken from actual claim forms submitted to
a number of UK car insurance companies
Now you can go to a credit hire firm and obtain a car on credit. They will supply the car hire to you on credit and pursue recovery, not only of the cost of the hire, but also your other uninsured losses as well from the negligent third party and their insurers.
Sounds simple, but the insurance industry was not happy.Why? Because the cost of the credit hire was significantly higher than the cost of a normal car hire rates. So there were many legal disputes' between the new credit hire industry and the insurance industry with thousands of court cases clogging up the system. Indeed, many credit hire firms found themselves with cashflow difficulties and went bust or were taken over.
During 2001, following a landmark hearing in the House of Lords, insurers and credit hire firms have largely resolved their differences. I have little sympathy for the insurance industry, this has arisen through their own fault. Instead of listening to the needs of their customers, they have their heads buried in litigation. Even now, it is seen as a claims problem. WRONG!
If senior managers and underwriters of all the major insurers redesigned the concept of a comprehensive policy, and provided the cover and services now demanded by the insurance market, they could have avoided all this difficulty and expense in the first place.
