Damaged car falls off recovery vehicle: how can we allocate responsibility and secure equivalent car hire?

My Porsche was damaged in a rear end shunt which was not my fault. The crash impact bust the oil cooler and made it undrivable. The police called a recovery unit to the scene and the car was loaded to be ferried home. Whether or not the driver secured the vehicle properly is in dispute but at some stage on the journey the car fell off the recovery lorry and may well now be a total write off. The recovery firm's insurer and the driver involved in the impact are now disputing how much damage each is responsible for. I am currently without a replacement as my local dealer doesn't have a suitable vehicle in stock but they are pressing me to use a hire company who they say can provide me with an equivalent car. My insurer has offered me a hire car but the allowance they say they will pay would not get me an equivalent quality vehicle. I am concerned that the dispute between the two responsible insurers will affect the speed of my payout and that if I go for the equivalent hire car, my insurer might refuse to pay for it and leave me out of pocket. Any advice?

Answer

You are clearly an innocent party and assuming you are uninjured and comprehensively insured, your claim other than for hire is easy to quantify and will succeed in any event. The issue of who pays for what should be of no concern to you. Your claim for the vehicle will be settled in full and it is up to the various parties to fight out the detail.

With regard to the car hire, you are entitled to receive a vehicle of similar quality but you need to be very cautious about vehicles offered by your local dealer in this manner as this seems likely to be a "credit hire" arrangement which can be at a cost far greater than that otherwise incurred by insurers for provision of an identical vehicle. "Credit hire" companies can be useful, but insurers dislike them because of the high charges they make. You are entitled to an equivalent quality vehicle to the one which was damaged and if the funding offered by your insurer is insufficient for this, you should inform them that this is the case and demand they provide an appropriate vehicle directly themselves.

Your insurer should be instructed to write to both the third party insurers suggesting they decide between them which will settle your claim and fund the cost of the hire vehicle and inform them that should they not be able to reach agreement, they may well have to face the much greater cost of the credit hire.

If the dispute is such that credit hire becomes your only option to obtain an equivalent vehicle, be certain to thoroughly check the terms and conditions of the provider to ascertain that there is no personal liability on your part should the credit hire company's claim for payment against the insurers fail in any way.

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