Hello all

Just a quick question which I am really sure is simple to answer for those of you in the know

Last week, a stolen lorry ran into my mums car and caused quite a lot of damage (my sisters car was also written off). Garage has called today to say that they expect to have the car in for repairs for at least 3 weeks but will not give her a courtesy car.

Would my mum be able to hire a car for the time hers is in the garage and then claim it back? She is with Direct Line, who I presume will be claiming from the insurance company of the Lorry.... (just an assumption on my part, have no idea but they do know which company the lorry belonged to)

Car hire costs are about £150 a week and that is for the same car as hers.

She can't ring Direct Line until the morning so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi Dolly.

In principle, if you need a replacement vehicle while yours is of the road then the reasonable cost of an equivilent hire vehicle is always recoverable from the negligent driver and / or their insurers.

However in your case I'm not entirely sure who you'd recover the costs from. Your own insurance company would not pay it; you would have to look to the party at fault. The natural defendant would be the person who actually caused the damage, but I probably wouldn't fancy your chances of recovering anything from someone who nicks lorries for a living! I'm not sure whether and to what extent the owners insurers would be liable to pay if the vehicle was stolen - I've never come accross the situation before, maybe someone else can offer some advice.

If you didn't hire a replacement vehicle and made do without one then you'll be able to claim compensation for the loss of the use of your vehicle - again subject to finding someone to pay up!

HTH

The TP insurer does have discretion to meet the claim but need not do so. There may be also a chance of claiming from the Motor Insurers Bureau.

Check if your policy has a courtesy car option and under what conditions - it will probably be subject to availability if you are using one of their "approved" repairers. If you are using a garage of your own choice then it's down to that garage.

As GaryH says, you can claim for a car up to an equivalent of your own. Personally, I would advise getting the smallest / cheapest one you can. The TP is less likely to argue, and in case you cannot claim the costs, you will save yourself some money.

I thought I would just update this as you never know, it may happen to someone else

As it stands at present, there is no-one to claim off - my mums insurance company is trying to claim off the insurance of the owner of the yard from which it was stolen from. Basically it was a lorry breakers / scrapyard - fence scaled, lorry hotwired and rammed through fence gates (very action film-ish).

Now the lorry was uninsured but the yard was insured, that is what her insurance company are arguing but it is likely to drag on and on. In the end she did pay for a hire car - a fiesta - and hired it for 2 weeks when hers was off the road for 3 weeks.

So it is just a case of wait and see if she can claim it back. The MIB excess is £300 (if I remember correctly) and the car cost her that, plus her excess so she should hopefully be able to get some back....eventually

Thanks for your advice - this is the report of it if you are interested. So very, very lucky no-one was killed.

Stolen lorry leaves trail of destruction in Blackburn suburb (From Lancashire Telegraph)

I hate saying this (and I haven't read the report) but...

It may be worth having a sob-story word with the newspaper. A story like this is quite likely to agitate the PR dept of yours or the TPs insurer.

I say hate because a claim should go on merits and not public opinion. But the latter seems nowadays to be the only thing that matters. Sad.