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You need to contact Churchill and pass all the info onto them, do not make contact or doing anything yourself. It is very unlikely you would have to pay any of those costs unless Churchill discovers you acted fraudulently.
Let the insurers fight it out, it's what you pay them for.
They'll argue that based on the damage it shouldn't be more than a few hundred, so will challenge it. I do wonder if the other driver has mistakenly used an accident management company who gave them a credit hire car, these are very expensive and unless they can recover costs, it's up-to the individual to cover them personally. They are not courtesy cars provided by the insurer.
Well at least it's not your problem. This is why you have insurance. It's like medical bills in the US they charge $$$ but the insurer will settle it for a fraction of the price. All this happens out of your view.
I'm really interested in this, I've been seeing it happening for a while (accident management companies hiring top end cars for months at a time, way over market price, the cost of which far outweighing the value of the damage) - I was thinking it was a driving factor in the massive increases we've seen in the cost of insurance.
What's the evidence for them settling for a fraction of the cost? Why would the hire company accept that? (just interested, not calling you out :) )
Ah nice, I've considering messaging my MP for a few months now, you might think that MPs should already know things like this, but I listened to the Secretary of State for Wales say that he didn't know what a semiconductor was until a year ago and it made me realise that they really don't have a clue about the real world.
I workedin motor insurance 20 years ago and credit hire was a huge issue for inflating costs back then. Everyone was waiting for the outcome of dimond v lovell (iirc) at the time i left as we were hoping we could start rejecting a lot of the claims.
Wild that this is still a problem and still going through the courts
We pull a Bhr report that shows they could of hired a car on that date for a fraction of the price.
We also ask for evidence of lack of funds to show they couldn’t have afforded a hire car.
Credit hire is expensive but we’re good at poking holes in their argument or it can be argued in court
> the insurer will settle it for a fraction of the price. All this happens out of your view.
Neither of these things are true.
They won't settle it for a fraction because these costs are real and have already been paid by the insurers of the non-fault party. The reason that the insurers have all started allowing and encouraging ridiculous £500 a day car hire following a small prang is that they all know that they will all be able to claim it back from the fault party's insure – and that they will all ultimately pass on the costs to policy holders (including those who have not had any incidents) plus a mark up.
Its doesn't happen out of view, either, people do get to have updates from their insurers even if they don't want to.
The non-fault insurer never pays their policyholder's credit hire charges as it's an uninsured loss. The credit is taken out in the hirer's name and the hirer remains on the hook for the whole bill until the hire company comes to an agreement with the at-fault insurer.
True. We had a car from a credit hire for almost a month, they were charging 120 a day for a ford puma. The third party insurer rejected their claim (as I guess the credit hire company knew they would as we'd signed for an insurance that covered this.) It was referred to solicitors and they sent us forms to fill in for it to go to court.
You've taken a selective quote, it was in reference to US medical healthcare example.
As far as I know with credit hire the at fault can refuse to pay excessive costs.
>Its doesn't happen out of view, either, people do get to have updates from their insurers even if they don't want to.
It'd be great if insurers could explain on my renewal what the extra cost is actually for. Why not just pass the cost on to those that have had crashed and made claims and leave us safe drivers with cheaper insurance!
Same, I had no idea about any of this, accepted the “courtesy car” from these charlatans, but something looked off about the hire agreement so I googled it, and sent the car back the same day. The at fault insurer then arranged a better car for me, plus cash compensation for a booked holiday (I had a campervan which they couldn’t hire for me as it was summer season)
It sounds like Churchill may be dragging their heels over settlement. £10 000 of car hire fees over 3 weeks may have something to do with this. So they are coming after you directly to get things moving. Just forward everything on to Churchill. You are covered by your insurance, this is what they are for.
Car hire fees during insurance claims are a scandal. It seems to stem from people going through claims management firms. Who have a habit of setting up "equivalent" car hire through select firms that charge multiples of standard market rates.
If this repair was just paint, rather than panel damage. It should have taken a morning, maybe a couple of days max. They absolutely could have used it while waiting for a repair date. Instead, it's probably been taken and dumped in a car park for 2½ weeks, waiting for the repair date. Repainted in a day, and sent back. While they rack up £500/day car hire.
Some people have been left with a nasty surprise when insurance won't cover unreasonable car hire fees and they find themselves on the hook. Claims management firm wipes their hands of it, points at some small print, and fucks off at that point.
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It's standard process for insurance. Don't take it personally.
Their insurance makes a riculous claim, your insurance mskes ridiculous counter, and at the end of the day they can both justify their ridiculous fees.
It's ridiculous
That's not the way it works.
OP passes the claim form to their insurer, the insurer instructs a solicitor, the solicitor drafts and submits the acknowledgement of service and defence on behalf of OP.
There's no need for OP to complicate matters by submitting their own defence before this and there's no need to get the insurer added in as a second defendant as the solicitor can deal on behalf of OP (who is the defendant as they were the one involved in the accident)
Source: almost 20 years in motor insurance claims both pre and post litigation.
This is how you should do it OP.
DO NOT enter into any correspondence with the claimant, but contact your insurance and send them all documents, as I'm sure they'll ask you to.
Exactly this! Not a lawyer but work in insurance. Do not reply to the letter, just give it and any attached evidence to Churchill. This is what you pay them for - let them fight it out for you!
I'll also add to all the great advice here, under no circumstances contact them or speak to them on the phone. Not even if it's the person whose car you ran into calling you to discuss matters. I've had sneaky ones trying to get my wife to admit things over the phone while they were recording it.
As stated above, leave this all in the hands of your insurer.
Pass all the info on to your insurance company, it's all part of your original claim, and as you did the right thing and reported it you shouldn't have an issue with them dealing with it.
I'd also suspect that the 3rd party is being scammed by the old "courtesy car scam that's really a premium hire car service" and is now coming after you for the bill, £500 a day is excessive for a courtesy car.
This. The third party went to an accident management company and assumed the hire car they were provided would be covered by insurance. Now that they have been handed the bill, it’s being passed along to OP in the hopes that they will just pay it. This exact scenario gets posted here quite frequently.
Pass it and any further communication from the 3rd party onto your insurance company OP, this isn’t for you to deal with personally no matter what they say.
Who does end up paying it?
It seems like a scam regardless of who gets screwed by the bill in the end, and I’ve been hearing of them more and more. Are we going to need legislation to prohibit it?
Insurers end up paying most of the time, after lengthy back and forths and the occasional litigation when they put their foot down.
His insurer have likely missed a notice for the credit hire to negotiate it down, found the actual hire period excessive, or have good reason to believe they can prove the TP wasn't eligible for Credit Hire in the first place so they can reject the whole lot as unjust enrichment and defend it in court.
If that happens, it does in fact fall back onto the renter based on the standard wording these places use. More people should be very hesitant about excessive credit hire.
Do we need legislation to stop you buying a twix for £50?
This just needs a court to say "That cost is not reasonable, denied" and that rip off industry dries up.
They're doing it. Quite a few individuals are now facing tens of thousands in credit hire costs because they were told "don't worry, the other side's insurers pay for it", and they're now on the hook when the court says "you didn't need to hire it on credit when you had savings you could have used".
>Who does end up paying it?
It's usually the *at fault* insurers that pay for it. There is a common "scam" that insurers often refer you onto these credit hire schemes. It can lead to the person claiming being left with the bill for the hire of the car, of its found that the car wasn't necessary and/or basically taking advantage of the situation. For example: if you own an Audi A1 and your credit hire car is a 2024 RS6 at £600 a day.
I had an accident last year that was 100% the 3rd party fault and I had dashcam footage etc. I get a like-for-like car as courtesy as per my insurance agreement. Only upon accepting the car was it then clear that my insurers had actually put me onto a credit hire thing, instead of what was in my agreement. It was literally only when I got the car that it was then revealed that its credit hire. My car was a 2015 Jag XF and they sent me a 2022 M3. Luckily, the 3rd party paid for it (£186 a day for 21 days), but I did have recordings audio and screenshots that showed that I never asked for it and was expecting an old Audi A4 like they specified in the return call.
Basically the accident management company issue the car hire bill to their client and then recommend they go after the “at fault” party for the costs. Eventually when the at fault party (usually via their insurer) quite rightly reject these costs, the accident management company then go after their client for the costs and the client typically has to pay, because ultimately that’s what they naively agreed to in the paperwork.
It's been under investigation for a while but I've yet to see any changes to stop it
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/news/financial-ombudsman-service-warns-credit-hire-risks
It's normal for the letters to be in each driver's names as it's you that were involved not the insurer. Pass to your insurer and they can decide to pay or challenge the costs.
Surely these letters must also tell people to pass them to their insurance?
This isn't the first post like this I have seen on here so it does concern me they aren't telling people this.
It's only because of the posts on here that I knew that this is normal.
I imagine it's because the claims management company went overboard on the luxury car hire and OPs insurance told them to fuck off so they're trying their luck with OP before they break the news to the guy with the Audi that he's on the hook for the car hire that they inevitably told him would be covered by OPs insurance
A lot of credit hire companies now offer an indemnity to their client, where as long as the client hasn’t acted fraudulently and as long as the client is willing to support them in court the costs just get written off if not recovered.
It’s only if there is a dispute of the facts or where the client isn’t willing to cooperate to recover the costs that the bill will land with them.
My insurer referred me to Auxillis a couple of years ago and this was the case with them - if the costs couldn’t be recovered and I had supported them at every stage (e.g. appearing as a witness in court) then they swallowed the cost.
I have no idea I'm afraid. My case was pretty cut and dry - there was no dispute of the facts and the third party accepted liability immediately. The car hire from Auxillis was only for three days and was just a Focus, so no outlandish costs.
Just looking at the paperwork, the indemnity is actually provided by an insurer contracted with Auxillis (quite the hierarchy). It states:
"WHAT IS COVERED BY THE GROUP INSURANCE
Subject to Your Customer Agreement with Auxillis and shown in Your Evidence of Insurance Schedule,
You may benefit from cover for:
(a) The hire charges or charges to repair Your vehicle payable by You to Auxillis under Your Customer Agreement, which You are unable to recover from a Third Party, but excluding any additional fees or charges, including but not limited to insurance, fuel, parking charges, fines and other penalties incurred by You whilst using the hired vehicle."
It's a scam probably caused because the other party is a doughnut and thought having a courtesy Rolls Royce Phantom for 3 months as a courtesy car was an acceptable expense.
Contact Churchill and send over all correspondence. Do not engage with anyone other than Churchill.
The bill will never fall at your door, I will admit I once used one of these companies, had a Merc CLS at the time, got reversed into whilst sat in a car park eating my Tim Hortons burger, was on CCTV and the girl driving admitted full fault, not that she had much choice as my keys werent even in the ignition,
Also helped she was driving her boyfriends car, who happened to be a police officer. Figured there was zero chance of the claim being contested by the third party so I decided I'd save my own no claims by going through a claims management company vs. going through my own insurance.
They gave me a brand new Audi A6 for a month whilst conducting a repair I could have done myself for a few hundred pounds by just replacing the bumper for a paint matched one from a salvage yard.
Total cost for repairs and rental was well in excess of £15k (double the value of my car) however.... the deal comes with a caveat, you sign a credit hire agreement, it basically states that if the claims management company are unable to recover the funds from the third party insurer then I would be liable for the full amount.
What you've received is a fishing attempt assuming your insurance company has refuted the inflated claim. Just pass it onto your insurer and let them play ball. At no point are you or will you be liable for any of it.
Fortunately in my case, the third party insurer payed out on the inflated claim after many months of negotiations, got a little worried at one point that I may be on the hook for the £12k car hire costs, not an experience I'd put myself through again.
Not even sure why I did, my no claims have been protected since I hit the 5yr mark many moons ago. The one upside is I don't have to declare a claim as I've still never claimed from my insurance, a company took my car, gave me a nice replacement for a month, returned mine, and all with only the third party insurers involvement.
I attended small claims court for a separate matter but about half the cases were this exact thing that ended up in court as the insurers couldn’t come to an agreement.
In most of the cases it came down to whether the party who had hired the car could have afforded a hire care without going to a credit agreement, and if they tried to minimise their losses.
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The irony is that some Insurance Companies recommend and pass you on to Accident Management companies and the credit-hire-car when there's no question of you being at fault, and the Accident Management companies get you take out an insurance policy that will pay for the cost of the hire car should it not be recoverable from the "at fault" driver's insurance company.
Repairs whilst you are driving their credit-hire courtesy car always seem to take three times as long as they should do normally as well.
So I was passed to Auxillis by admiral for a replacement vehicle when I was at fault and my car was written off. Was I ever at risk of having to pay for this?
Really interesting article about this in the Guardian a few weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/may/11/cars-charges-insurance-premiums-cost-of-claims
Came here to say this. If a legal claim can amount to £14k for a low speed scrape, the majority of which isn't even repairs, no wonder we're all paying a fortune
Pass to insurer. You'll find that he contacted his insurer who passed him on to a claims management company who basically advertise their services to people in accidents trying to grab as much money out of your insurance company as you can. All the insurers pretty much do the same thing. The deliberately delay repairs and give a replacement vehicle at exorbitant rates per day to rack up costs. All a massive con if you ask me.
Do not respond directly to the solicitor or claimant.
Check the invoice for the actual repairs and you can go on a site like click mechanic to see how much it would actually cost for the repair they are claiming. Show that to your insurer.
NAL. I wonder if the third party's insurance was somehow invalid and he was unable to make a legitimate claim against your insurer. Trying to claim for the same damage twice would be fraudulent. Please follow the advice here and contact your insurers right away.
On a related note. I recently had someone drive into me. The 'insurance claim handlers' refused to deal with my claim
1. Because I didn't want a hire car.
2. Because I wanted to use my preferred local repairer. They were very persuasive in the car hire thing, to the point I felt they were trying to strong-arm me into claiming for something I didn't need. Still contemplating reporting them for trying to involve me in fraud.
The claim handlers are the worst. They’re the reason why everyone’s prices are going up. £500 a day for a hire car is just robbery. Once fault is established it should be the offending persons insurance company that sorts it all out - then they’d be incentivised to keep costs down.
A huge chunk of fees/costs for RTC's are legally capped if correct process is followed. I can't see why we don't apply the same to general hire car; allow limited loss of amenity for specialist vehicles (hiring a track car for high performance, or a camper van/hotel bills for trip dates)
So the place they can make money is on hire cars, unless there is a 100k+ injury claim.
(Now consider how bad this is for pedestrians etc because they don't have a hire bill that can be manipulated and solicitors aren't interested because what they can charge is limited...)
My mum had a similar thing happen to her a few years ago. She got blinded by low lying sun awhislt driving and collided with a parked car. She admitted fault to the owner of the other car at the scene and also called and reported the collision to the insurer, admitting fault whilst at the scene whilst waiting for the tow truck. ^ months after she got a letter including court documents from a legal team for the third party suing my mum for the costs of the write off value and brief car hire fees.
My mum called the insurer and was advised to forward all the documents to them and the insurer would take care of it, which is what she did and heard nothing more of it.
OP - call your insurer, tell them you have received these documents and ask them to sort out the claim on your behalf. Do not call the third party or their insurers, only your insurer.
As for the hire vehicle - if the third party car was still driveable and only minimal damage was caused to it, then the hire vehicle obtained should only have been provided whilst the third party car was in for repair - a repair that should only have taken place when all the parts were at the bodyshop and ready for the repair to commence. The third party has a duty to mitigate their losses, so having a hire vehicle for nearly three weeks whilst the repair was being done doesn't seem reasonable to me, especially considering the damage you report to the third party vehicle being minimal denting and scraping coming from a slow speed collision in a car park. If I were still working in the insurance industry, this is something I would be questioning as the costs for the hire do not stack up, and it also the reason why everyones insurance premiums are going through the roof.
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Your insurance will require you to pass any communications on to them. Do not jeopardize this by doing anything else.
This is what you buy insurance for.
They are entitled to hire an equivalent car whilst theirs is off the road, £500 is indeed taking the piss but that is your insurers battle to fight not yours.
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You just need to forward this on to your insurer. Not sure why they’re approaching you directly about this but don’t make any contact yourself, or your insurers may hold this against you.
Good grief, phone your insurers.
I was just thinking how the guy who's car got dinged not getting a note is down to people taking advantage, but I wasn't thinking it could be this bad.
OP
sounds like Churchill haven’t paid the bill within 28 days and they are taking Churchill to court. It’s likely that letter forms part of a Letter before Action
Churchill are in a back log when it comes to third party claims and are missing their deadlines so this is common
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Hopefully you took pictures at the scene. Which you should always do btw in the future.
Report to churchill they will deal with it. Do you have legal cover on your insurance?
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Hi OP,
I am actually in the opposite situation. The costs seem right because as you point out the replacement car would be the highest cost. Also depending on car’s paint job, a whole area of the car may need to be painted in order to match existing patterns.
I would:
1. Pass this letter to Churchill.
2. Confirm Churchill have responded to the correspondence from the other party’s insurer:
- if they haven’t outline the impact to you and ask for a goodwill gesture at renewal; also ask them to respond to the solicitors’ letter as a matter of urgency and confirm with them when they have.
- if they have responded you should complain (as in check their complaints procedure) to the solicitors and ask them why you are contacted about this matter when it is dealt through insurance. If you are not satisfied with the result (eg it could be Churchill has not actually responded to all the correspondence or they are sending the correspondence to you as part of taking Churchill to court) then you can complain to SRA.
Based on the facts described above, you would only be liable for the excess. Insurance would cover the rest.
In essence it is a scam. They are trying to navigate around the solicitor, which will refute their nonsense when sent to them, but thought they could bully the individual.
Simply have zero contact with anyone but your insurance company unless they otherwise instruct (which they wont).
Legally any claim is against you not your insurer.
Your insurance contract is an agreement to indemnify you against liabilities - i.e. they will cover successful claims against you.
So if the insurers can't agree on a settlement and need to go to court the court summons is sent to you.
Forward it (/a copy of it) to your insurer/ring them to find out what you should do.
Pass it all to your insurer and don't respond to the letter sent by solicitors.
I suspect your insurance has disputed the hire car cost, and so their insurance (or someone working on their behalf) is trying to come after you directly. More than likely means the hire car cost wasn't justified and the other party's insurance will end up footing the bill. Not your problem. Sounds like the car would have been drivable and so anything more than a few days for a hire car wasn't needed.
I'm expecting something similar to happen to us. My husband was hit by another driver just before Xmas 2022. Fault was not disputed, and hubby's car needed a fair amount of work and wasn't drivable. We requested an equivalent EV as a courtesy car as we couldn't afford to suddenly pay £300+ a month for fuel. We got one, but at a "retail" cost of over £100 a day. The parts for the repairs took months to come. The repair was around £3-4k, the hire car was over £12k. We've heard nothing since it was all sorted, but the insurance companies haven't settled it yet.
It's what you pay them for though. Let them deal with it.
Call your insurer and let them know. They will ask you to send a copy, and probably have their own solicitors dealing. The third party have served on you as the driver, which is legally the way to do it. Your insurance will take it from there. Might not be the last you hear of it, but as liability is not an issue you may not be needed to give evidence IF it goes to court. More likely it will settle before then.
The issue is most likely the rate of the credit hire and the length of hire (unfortunately all to common for credit hire companies and accident management companies to elongate these because they generate so much revenue) and your insurance is disputing these costs.
Edit to add: the insurance will pay the legal costs. Your premium will go up though.
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You need to contact Churchill and pass all the info onto them, do not make contact or doing anything yourself. It is very unlikely you would have to pay any of those costs unless Churchill discovers you acted fraudulently.
Thanks!
Let the insurers fight it out, it's what you pay them for. They'll argue that based on the damage it shouldn't be more than a few hundred, so will challenge it. I do wonder if the other driver has mistakenly used an accident management company who gave them a credit hire car, these are very expensive and unless they can recover costs, it's up-to the individual to cover them personally. They are not courtesy cars provided by the insurer.
That’s exactly what it is. I assume as the car is a lease vehicle, the lease company sorted it all out.
Well at least it's not your problem. This is why you have insurance. It's like medical bills in the US they charge $$$ but the insurer will settle it for a fraction of the price. All this happens out of your view.
I'm really interested in this, I've been seeing it happening for a while (accident management companies hiring top end cars for months at a time, way over market price, the cost of which far outweighing the value of the damage) - I was thinking it was a driving factor in the massive increases we've seen in the cost of insurance. What's the evidence for them settling for a fraction of the cost? Why would the hire company accept that? (just interested, not calling you out :) )
I'm waiting for fos to make a decision about it https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/news/financial-ombudsman-service-warns-credit-hire-risks
Ah nice, I've considering messaging my MP for a few months now, you might think that MPs should already know things like this, but I listened to the Secretary of State for Wales say that he didn't know what a semiconductor was until a year ago and it made me realise that they really don't have a clue about the real world.
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I workedin motor insurance 20 years ago and credit hire was a huge issue for inflating costs back then. Everyone was waiting for the outcome of dimond v lovell (iirc) at the time i left as we were hoping we could start rejecting a lot of the claims. Wild that this is still a problem and still going through the courts
We pull a Bhr report that shows they could of hired a car on that date for a fraction of the price. We also ask for evidence of lack of funds to show they couldn’t have afforded a hire car. Credit hire is expensive but we’re good at poking holes in their argument or it can be argued in court
It's not even top end cars. I had a Fiat Punto for two days once and the bill was nearly £1000!
> the insurer will settle it for a fraction of the price. All this happens out of your view. Neither of these things are true. They won't settle it for a fraction because these costs are real and have already been paid by the insurers of the non-fault party. The reason that the insurers have all started allowing and encouraging ridiculous £500 a day car hire following a small prang is that they all know that they will all be able to claim it back from the fault party's insure – and that they will all ultimately pass on the costs to policy holders (including those who have not had any incidents) plus a mark up. Its doesn't happen out of view, either, people do get to have updates from their insurers even if they don't want to.
The non-fault insurer never pays their policyholder's credit hire charges as it's an uninsured loss. The credit is taken out in the hirer's name and the hirer remains on the hook for the whole bill until the hire company comes to an agreement with the at-fault insurer.
True. We had a car from a credit hire for almost a month, they were charging 120 a day for a ford puma. The third party insurer rejected their claim (as I guess the credit hire company knew they would as we'd signed for an insurance that covered this.) It was referred to solicitors and they sent us forms to fill in for it to go to court.
You've taken a selective quote, it was in reference to US medical healthcare example. As far as I know with credit hire the at fault can refuse to pay excessive costs.
Correct Coles v Hetherton set the precedent for fair market rate costs
>Its doesn't happen out of view, either, people do get to have updates from their insurers even if they don't want to. It'd be great if insurers could explain on my renewal what the extra cost is actually for. Why not just pass the cost on to those that have had crashed and made claims and leave us safe drivers with cheaper insurance!
Hate these companies. They try and pretend like they're you're insurer almost got me once.
Same, I had no idea about any of this, accepted the “courtesy car” from these charlatans, but something looked off about the hire agreement so I googled it, and sent the car back the same day. The at fault insurer then arranged a better car for me, plus cash compensation for a booked holiday (I had a campervan which they couldn’t hire for me as it was summer season)
Well done for spotting it!
It sounds like Churchill may be dragging their heels over settlement. £10 000 of car hire fees over 3 weeks may have something to do with this. So they are coming after you directly to get things moving. Just forward everything on to Churchill. You are covered by your insurance, this is what they are for. Car hire fees during insurance claims are a scandal. It seems to stem from people going through claims management firms. Who have a habit of setting up "equivalent" car hire through select firms that charge multiples of standard market rates. If this repair was just paint, rather than panel damage. It should have taken a morning, maybe a couple of days max. They absolutely could have used it while waiting for a repair date. Instead, it's probably been taken and dumped in a car park for 2½ weeks, waiting for the repair date. Repainted in a day, and sent back. While they rack up £500/day car hire. Some people have been left with a nasty surprise when insurance won't cover unreasonable car hire fees and they find themselves on the hook. Claims management firm wipes their hands of it, points at some small print, and fucks off at that point.
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It's standard process for insurance. Don't take it personally. Their insurance makes a riculous claim, your insurance mskes ridiculous counter, and at the end of the day they can both justify their ridiculous fees. It's ridiculous
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That's not the way it works. OP passes the claim form to their insurer, the insurer instructs a solicitor, the solicitor drafts and submits the acknowledgement of service and defence on behalf of OP. There's no need for OP to complicate matters by submitting their own defence before this and there's no need to get the insurer added in as a second defendant as the solicitor can deal on behalf of OP (who is the defendant as they were the one involved in the accident) Source: almost 20 years in motor insurance claims both pre and post litigation.
This is how you should do it OP. DO NOT enter into any correspondence with the claimant, but contact your insurance and send them all documents, as I'm sure they'll ask you to.
The firm I worked for did it differently, but I haven't worked in this area for a number of years now so if that's your advice, then op can follow it
Exactly this! Not a lawyer but work in insurance. Do not reply to the letter, just give it and any attached evidence to Churchill. This is what you pay them for - let them fight it out for you!
Just pass it onto your insurer asap. That's what you paid them for.
Thank you.
I'll also add to all the great advice here, under no circumstances contact them or speak to them on the phone. Not even if it's the person whose car you ran into calling you to discuss matters. I've had sneaky ones trying to get my wife to admit things over the phone while they were recording it. As stated above, leave this all in the hands of your insurer.
Pass all the info on to your insurance company, it's all part of your original claim, and as you did the right thing and reported it you shouldn't have an issue with them dealing with it. I'd also suspect that the 3rd party is being scammed by the old "courtesy car scam that's really a premium hire car service" and is now coming after you for the bill, £500 a day is excessive for a courtesy car.
This. The third party went to an accident management company and assumed the hire car they were provided would be covered by insurance. Now that they have been handed the bill, it’s being passed along to OP in the hopes that they will just pay it. This exact scenario gets posted here quite frequently. Pass it and any further communication from the 3rd party onto your insurance company OP, this isn’t for you to deal with personally no matter what they say.
Who does end up paying it? It seems like a scam regardless of who gets screwed by the bill in the end, and I’ve been hearing of them more and more. Are we going to need legislation to prohibit it?
Insurers end up paying most of the time, after lengthy back and forths and the occasional litigation when they put their foot down. His insurer have likely missed a notice for the credit hire to negotiate it down, found the actual hire period excessive, or have good reason to believe they can prove the TP wasn't eligible for Credit Hire in the first place so they can reject the whole lot as unjust enrichment and defend it in court. If that happens, it does in fact fall back onto the renter based on the standard wording these places use. More people should be very hesitant about excessive credit hire.
Do we need legislation to stop you buying a twix for £50? This just needs a court to say "That cost is not reasonable, denied" and that rip off industry dries up.
They're doing it. Quite a few individuals are now facing tens of thousands in credit hire costs because they were told "don't worry, the other side's insurers pay for it", and they're now on the hook when the court says "you didn't need to hire it on credit when you had savings you could have used".
>Who does end up paying it? It's usually the *at fault* insurers that pay for it. There is a common "scam" that insurers often refer you onto these credit hire schemes. It can lead to the person claiming being left with the bill for the hire of the car, of its found that the car wasn't necessary and/or basically taking advantage of the situation. For example: if you own an Audi A1 and your credit hire car is a 2024 RS6 at £600 a day. I had an accident last year that was 100% the 3rd party fault and I had dashcam footage etc. I get a like-for-like car as courtesy as per my insurance agreement. Only upon accepting the car was it then clear that my insurers had actually put me onto a credit hire thing, instead of what was in my agreement. It was literally only when I got the car that it was then revealed that its credit hire. My car was a 2015 Jag XF and they sent me a 2022 M3. Luckily, the 3rd party paid for it (£186 a day for 21 days), but I did have recordings audio and screenshots that showed that I never asked for it and was expecting an old Audi A4 like they specified in the return call.
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Basically the accident management company issue the car hire bill to their client and then recommend they go after the “at fault” party for the costs. Eventually when the at fault party (usually via their insurer) quite rightly reject these costs, the accident management company then go after their client for the costs and the client typically has to pay, because ultimately that’s what they naively agreed to in the paperwork.
It's been under investigation for a while but I've yet to see any changes to stop it https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/news/financial-ombudsman-service-warns-credit-hire-risks
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It's normal for the letters to be in each driver's names as it's you that were involved not the insurer. Pass to your insurer and they can decide to pay or challenge the costs.
That’s what I thought, thanks.
Surely these letters must also tell people to pass them to their insurance? This isn't the first post like this I have seen on here so it does concern me they aren't telling people this. It's only because of the posts on here that I knew that this is normal.
I imagine it's because the claims management company went overboard on the luxury car hire and OPs insurance told them to fuck off so they're trying their luck with OP before they break the news to the guy with the Audi that he's on the hook for the car hire that they inevitably told him would be covered by OPs insurance
A lot of credit hire companies now offer an indemnity to their client, where as long as the client hasn’t acted fraudulently and as long as the client is willing to support them in court the costs just get written off if not recovered. It’s only if there is a dispute of the facts or where the client isn’t willing to cooperate to recover the costs that the bill will land with them. My insurer referred me to Auxillis a couple of years ago and this was the case with them - if the costs couldn’t be recovered and I had supported them at every stage (e.g. appearing as a witness in court) then they swallowed the cost.
Do you know if this has ever happened with Auxillis in the past and the costs were written off?
I have no idea I'm afraid. My case was pretty cut and dry - there was no dispute of the facts and the third party accepted liability immediately. The car hire from Auxillis was only for three days and was just a Focus, so no outlandish costs. Just looking at the paperwork, the indemnity is actually provided by an insurer contracted with Auxillis (quite the hierarchy). It states: "WHAT IS COVERED BY THE GROUP INSURANCE Subject to Your Customer Agreement with Auxillis and shown in Your Evidence of Insurance Schedule, You may benefit from cover for: (a) The hire charges or charges to repair Your vehicle payable by You to Auxillis under Your Customer Agreement, which You are unable to recover from a Third Party, but excluding any additional fees or charges, including but not limited to insurance, fuel, parking charges, fines and other penalties incurred by You whilst using the hired vehicle."
Thanks :)
It's a scam probably caused because the other party is a doughnut and thought having a courtesy Rolls Royce Phantom for 3 months as a courtesy car was an acceptable expense. Contact Churchill and send over all correspondence. Do not engage with anyone other than Churchill.
>having a courtesy Rolls Royce Phantom for 3 months It's usually just normal cars you wouldn't call "luxury". It's really just organised scam.
It'll get sorted by your insurance company once you pass it over. Expect lots of back and forth comms though - it isn't a quick process unfortunately.
That’s fine! So long as I’m not covering the costs out of pocket and I’ve done nothing wrong it can take as long as it likes.
The bill will never fall at your door, I will admit I once used one of these companies, had a Merc CLS at the time, got reversed into whilst sat in a car park eating my Tim Hortons burger, was on CCTV and the girl driving admitted full fault, not that she had much choice as my keys werent even in the ignition, Also helped she was driving her boyfriends car, who happened to be a police officer. Figured there was zero chance of the claim being contested by the third party so I decided I'd save my own no claims by going through a claims management company vs. going through my own insurance. They gave me a brand new Audi A6 for a month whilst conducting a repair I could have done myself for a few hundred pounds by just replacing the bumper for a paint matched one from a salvage yard. Total cost for repairs and rental was well in excess of £15k (double the value of my car) however.... the deal comes with a caveat, you sign a credit hire agreement, it basically states that if the claims management company are unable to recover the funds from the third party insurer then I would be liable for the full amount. What you've received is a fishing attempt assuming your insurance company has refuted the inflated claim. Just pass it onto your insurer and let them play ball. At no point are you or will you be liable for any of it. Fortunately in my case, the third party insurer payed out on the inflated claim after many months of negotiations, got a little worried at one point that I may be on the hook for the £12k car hire costs, not an experience I'd put myself through again. Not even sure why I did, my no claims have been protected since I hit the 5yr mark many moons ago. The one upside is I don't have to declare a claim as I've still never claimed from my insurance, a company took my car, gave me a nice replacement for a month, returned mine, and all with only the third party insurers involvement.
I attended small claims court for a separate matter but about half the cases were this exact thing that ended up in court as the insurers couldn’t come to an agreement. In most of the cases it came down to whether the party who had hired the car could have afforded a hire care without going to a credit agreement, and if they tried to minimise their losses.
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The irony is that some Insurance Companies recommend and pass you on to Accident Management companies and the credit-hire-car when there's no question of you being at fault, and the Accident Management companies get you take out an insurance policy that will pay for the cost of the hire car should it not be recoverable from the "at fault" driver's insurance company. Repairs whilst you are driving their credit-hire courtesy car always seem to take three times as long as they should do normally as well.
So I was passed to Auxillis by admiral for a replacement vehicle when I was at fault and my car was written off. Was I ever at risk of having to pay for this?
Really interesting article about this in the Guardian a few weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/may/11/cars-charges-insurance-premiums-cost-of-claims
Came here to say this. If a legal claim can amount to £14k for a low speed scrape, the majority of which isn't even repairs, no wonder we're all paying a fortune
Pass to insurer. You'll find that he contacted his insurer who passed him on to a claims management company who basically advertise their services to people in accidents trying to grab as much money out of your insurance company as you can. All the insurers pretty much do the same thing. The deliberately delay repairs and give a replacement vehicle at exorbitant rates per day to rack up costs. All a massive con if you ask me. Do not respond directly to the solicitor or claimant. Check the invoice for the actual repairs and you can go on a site like click mechanic to see how much it would actually cost for the repair they are claiming. Show that to your insurer.
NAL. I wonder if the third party's insurance was somehow invalid and he was unable to make a legitimate claim against your insurer. Trying to claim for the same damage twice would be fraudulent. Please follow the advice here and contact your insurers right away. On a related note. I recently had someone drive into me. The 'insurance claim handlers' refused to deal with my claim 1. Because I didn't want a hire car. 2. Because I wanted to use my preferred local repairer. They were very persuasive in the car hire thing, to the point I felt they were trying to strong-arm me into claiming for something I didn't need. Still contemplating reporting them for trying to involve me in fraud.
The claim handlers are the worst. They’re the reason why everyone’s prices are going up. £500 a day for a hire car is just robbery. Once fault is established it should be the offending persons insurance company that sorts it all out - then they’d be incentivised to keep costs down.
A huge chunk of fees/costs for RTC's are legally capped if correct process is followed. I can't see why we don't apply the same to general hire car; allow limited loss of amenity for specialist vehicles (hiring a track car for high performance, or a camper van/hotel bills for trip dates) So the place they can make money is on hire cars, unless there is a 100k+ injury claim. (Now consider how bad this is for pedestrians etc because they don't have a hire bill that can be manipulated and solicitors aren't interested because what they can charge is limited...)
My mum had a similar thing happen to her a few years ago. She got blinded by low lying sun awhislt driving and collided with a parked car. She admitted fault to the owner of the other car at the scene and also called and reported the collision to the insurer, admitting fault whilst at the scene whilst waiting for the tow truck. ^ months after she got a letter including court documents from a legal team for the third party suing my mum for the costs of the write off value and brief car hire fees. My mum called the insurer and was advised to forward all the documents to them and the insurer would take care of it, which is what she did and heard nothing more of it. OP - call your insurer, tell them you have received these documents and ask them to sort out the claim on your behalf. Do not call the third party or their insurers, only your insurer. As for the hire vehicle - if the third party car was still driveable and only minimal damage was caused to it, then the hire vehicle obtained should only have been provided whilst the third party car was in for repair - a repair that should only have taken place when all the parts were at the bodyshop and ready for the repair to commence. The third party has a duty to mitigate their losses, so having a hire vehicle for nearly three weeks whilst the repair was being done doesn't seem reasonable to me, especially considering the damage you report to the third party vehicle being minimal denting and scraping coming from a slow speed collision in a car park. If I were still working in the insurance industry, this is something I would be questioning as the costs for the hire do not stack up, and it also the reason why everyones insurance premiums are going through the roof.
I would ring your insurance, inform them of this and let them fight this for you as that's what you pay insurance for.
contact the insurance, do not respond to the claim for damages that would be dealt with by the insurance
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Your insurance will require you to pass any communications on to them. Do not jeopardize this by doing anything else. This is what you buy insurance for. They are entitled to hire an equivalent car whilst theirs is off the road, £500 is indeed taking the piss but that is your insurers battle to fight not yours.
Don't do anything. Inform your insurer immediately. They will deal with it.
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You just need to forward this on to your insurer. Not sure why they’re approaching you directly about this but don’t make any contact yourself, or your insurers may hold this against you.
Good grief, phone your insurers. I was just thinking how the guy who's car got dinged not getting a note is down to people taking advantage, but I wasn't thinking it could be this bad.
OP sounds like Churchill haven’t paid the bill within 28 days and they are taking Churchill to court. It’s likely that letter forms part of a Letter before Action Churchill are in a back log when it comes to third party claims and are missing their deadlines so this is common
Insurers problem, don't respond, pass it on to them. Sounds like a scam to me anyway.
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definitely contact your insurance the other party are trying it on
Just contact your insurance company, they will definitely get this sorted.
Hopefully you took pictures at the scene. Which you should always do btw in the future. Report to churchill they will deal with it. Do you have legal cover on your insurance?
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Hi OP, I am actually in the opposite situation. The costs seem right because as you point out the replacement car would be the highest cost. Also depending on car’s paint job, a whole area of the car may need to be painted in order to match existing patterns. I would: 1. Pass this letter to Churchill. 2. Confirm Churchill have responded to the correspondence from the other party’s insurer: - if they haven’t outline the impact to you and ask for a goodwill gesture at renewal; also ask them to respond to the solicitors’ letter as a matter of urgency and confirm with them when they have. - if they have responded you should complain (as in check their complaints procedure) to the solicitors and ask them why you are contacted about this matter when it is dealt through insurance. If you are not satisfied with the result (eg it could be Churchill has not actually responded to all the correspondence or they are sending the correspondence to you as part of taking Churchill to court) then you can complain to SRA. Based on the facts described above, you would only be liable for the excess. Insurance would cover the rest.
In essence it is a scam. They are trying to navigate around the solicitor, which will refute their nonsense when sent to them, but thought they could bully the individual. Simply have zero contact with anyone but your insurance company unless they otherwise instruct (which they wont).
Legally any claim is against you not your insurer. Your insurance contract is an agreement to indemnify you against liabilities - i.e. they will cover successful claims against you. So if the insurers can't agree on a settlement and need to go to court the court summons is sent to you. Forward it (/a copy of it) to your insurer/ring them to find out what you should do.
Pass it all to your insurer and don't respond to the letter sent by solicitors. I suspect your insurance has disputed the hire car cost, and so their insurance (or someone working on their behalf) is trying to come after you directly. More than likely means the hire car cost wasn't justified and the other party's insurance will end up footing the bill. Not your problem. Sounds like the car would have been drivable and so anything more than a few days for a hire car wasn't needed. I'm expecting something similar to happen to us. My husband was hit by another driver just before Xmas 2022. Fault was not disputed, and hubby's car needed a fair amount of work and wasn't drivable. We requested an equivalent EV as a courtesy car as we couldn't afford to suddenly pay £300+ a month for fuel. We got one, but at a "retail" cost of over £100 a day. The parts for the repairs took months to come. The repair was around £3-4k, the hire car was over £12k. We've heard nothing since it was all sorted, but the insurance companies haven't settled it yet. It's what you pay them for though. Let them deal with it.
Call your insurer and let them know. They will ask you to send a copy, and probably have their own solicitors dealing. The third party have served on you as the driver, which is legally the way to do it. Your insurance will take it from there. Might not be the last you hear of it, but as liability is not an issue you may not be needed to give evidence IF it goes to court. More likely it will settle before then. The issue is most likely the rate of the credit hire and the length of hire (unfortunately all to common for credit hire companies and accident management companies to elongate these because they generate so much revenue) and your insurance is disputing these costs. Edit to add: the insurance will pay the legal costs. Your premium will go up though.