[john51]

As most of you will know, I have a particular bee in my bonnet about insurance costs, rip -off Credit hire, etc, but I am again beginning to smell a large rat in the case of my Bro-in-law's accident repairs(Peugeot) He was rear-ended, and supplied with a hire car rather than a courtesy car, arranged by the bodyshop, I think quite unusual these days, they normally have their own cars.


They have had it over a month, and keep finding things that need to be done, the last thing was the toolkit!!! Now, I asked if perhaps it was one of those basic kits in a polystyrene moulding in the tyre, he thought it was, but didn't think it had suffered in the crash, I wonder what really happened to it?


Another delay was problems with the driver's seatbelt retraction, this had already been "flagged up" to them by the owner.


They have now found a problem with the airbags, yet more delay.. unavoidable and reasonable, or yet a deliberate attempt to put more money in the car hire coffers?

 

[Davis_Zadian]

Why is the body shop arranging a replacement vehicle? why did they get involved in that side of things?

 

[fossil01]

Hi John51,

When I had my last Fusion 'wrote off', I too was given a hire car by my Insurer/Repairer.

They both agreed that the car couldn't be repaired, and the other parties Insurer paid for the hire car - a company in Northern Ireland, who at the time was in receivership!

It took something like 3 months for them to actually cough up my compensation via my Insurer!
So perhaps, it happens far more than we are aware of.
The other party Insurer in this case, paid for all the fuel for me aswell!!

 

[john51]

D_Z, large bodyworks companies which are the recommended repairers of some insurers often have late model, basic cars available, allegedly free courtesy cars.

If they subsequently bill the insurer, I'm not aware of it. The subtle difference is that it is insured under your existing policy, saving money all round.


I did speak out of turn, I think the insurance company arranged the hire car in this case. When I got involved in this scam 6 years ago, they were charging £55 a day for a nasty little Hyundai!



I do agree that everyone should be fully and promptly re-imbursed for all losses, but if these accident management companies are allowed to extract the urine, we all pay, it's as bad as whiplash.


But... how do you damage a tool kit?? I bet it was nicked to go with a "real spare" deal!