I am currently in a similar situation and wondered if you can give me a bit of advice.

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?472364-Advice-needed-Claims-management-company-court-case&p=5087639#post5087639

Like you i accepted a hire vehicle after a non fault accident and told auxillis/principia that i was not in a financial position to pay for a hire car myself upfront.

I don't consider myself to be in a financial position despite savings accounts,

as the savings are for a purpose and i didn't think that it was reasonable for me to go into my savings to foot the bill for a hire car,

with no idea what the cost would be/when i would be reimbursed.

Principia are still having issues claiming back the hire car charges from the defendants insurers and i am at the stage where i need to provide bank statements.

If you don't mind me asking,

how has it gone for you in terms of having savings in the bank?

I can justify the reasons why i have sums of money in various bank accounts (saving for a wedding etc),

but do they take this on board when you submit all of your financial details to them?

Any advice is much appreciated as i am stressed the death!!

who wants the bank account details

if its not a judge tell 'em to do one!!

Agreed. Your bank accounts have nothing to do with any insurance company.

Tell them to jog on

It is the solicitor that has requested them as they are trying to seek payment from the defendants insurers.

As the credit hire charges for the vehicle are high

they are refusing to pay as they claim that i should have opted to have hired a car and paid upfront,

should i have been in a financial position to do so, and then i would be reimbursed at a later date.

I said that i wasnt in a financial position because as far as im concerned im not...

my savings are savings for a reason and it would of been unreasonable for me to use them for that purpose.

My solicitors need to prove that i was not in a financial position to have gone down that route hence why they need to provide financial evidence.

Now i am worrying that my savings are going to look like i was in a financial position...

Which theoretically yes, but that money is saved for an upcoming help to buy government loan.

The solicitor has no rights to them either

wait for UB to pop in here

but something is not right IMHO...

you shouldn't be having for a hire car if the fault lies with the other side IMHO no matter what savings you have

YOUR solicitor should not be even entertaining this foolery...

think we might need the full story please

I was involved in a non fault collision.

I contacted my insurance company who referred me to the credit hire company auxillis

- they provide car repairs and credit hire vehicle etc.

No excess required because it was a clear non fault incident.

Apparently credit hire vehicles are much pricier than "on the spot" car hire.

The defendants admitted liability and paying for the repair of my car has been no issue,

however the insurance company is saying that i should have utilised other car hire options (ie enterprise) other than credit hire should i have been financially able to do so.

People cannot be expected to just fork out money for a hire car for an unknown period of time with the promise of reimbursment when the insurance pays out.

Hence why i was not in a financial position to do so.

Nor did i think about looking around for hire prices when my insurance company recommended i went through auxillis who sorted everything out for me!

My only concern is whether they can argue that i should have used my savings- which as previously mentioned is for other purposes

I contacted my insurance company who referred me to the credit hire company auxillis

- they provide car repairs and credit hire vehicle etc.

not your problem your ins company recommended them...end of.

I contacted my insurance company who referred me to the credit hire company auxillis

- they provide car repairs and credit hire vehicle etc.

 

not your problem your ins company recommended them...end of.

I'm sorry but you are totally wrong here, DX. Your advice is well meaning but reckless.

The credit hire agreement is between the OP and the credit hire company. Not their insurer.

If the OP wants the other side to pay the bill they need to prove they are impecunious by providing bank statements and credit card statements etc. Without these the other sides insurer won't pay the credit hire bill in full or at all, leaving a shortfall that technically the OP is liable for.

In reality shortfalls are often, but not always, written off but the OP remains personally liable.

The OP is the Claimant and it's their duty to prove impecuniosity. This is established and settled law.

I was involved in a non fault collision.

 

I contacted my insurance company who referred me to the credit hire company auxillis

- they provide car repairs and credit hire vehicle etc.

 

No excess required because it was a clear non fault incident.

Apparently credit hire vehicles are much pricier than "on the spot" car hire.

Correct - e.g. a ford focus from Thrifty in B'ham today is about £23/day incl VAT, however from a credit hire company you can expect that to be upwards of £70/ day excluding VAT. At the more extreme end, I've seen credit hire invoices for over £1,000 + VAT per day for things like Bentleys where the spot hire equivalent was around £450/day incl VAT.

The defendants admitted liability and paying for the repair of my car has been no issue,

however the insurance company is saying that i should have utilised other car hire options (ie enterprise) other than credit hire should i have been financially able to do so.

A standard argument from Defendants. Put simply a claimant in such an action is required to take reasonable steps to mitigate their loss (i.e. keep their losses to a minimum). Hiring a vehicle on credit is more expensive than hiring on normally from a mainstream provider. After many many cases over the last 15 or so years, the current status of the law is that where a claimant cannot afford to hire a vehicle from their own means, they are entitled to recover the full credit hire rate.

Where they could afford to hire from their own means, they are only entitled to recover the lowest 'basic hire rate' (i.e. had they gone to a normal hire provider) available in their geographic area from a mainstream supplier. It is up to the Defendant to evidence the basic hire rate if the Claimant had the capacity to pay hire themselves.

People cannot be expected to just fork out money for a hire car for an unknown period of time with the promise of reimbursment when the insurance pays out.

To an extent I see what you're saying here. But the admission of liability from the Defendant takes away a huge element of that risk. As for the unknown period - I was at trial on a credit hire case in Manchester in October and the Claimant on the stand made a similar point - something like 'I didn't know how long the repairers would take my insurers were handling that'. At this point the Judge turned to him and said 'Well could you not have asked them?'

The key here is reasonable steps to minimise ones losses. A phonecall to an insurer or garage could reveal 'oh we'll have your car ready by next tuesday' - hence one would know how long to hire a car for.

Hence why i was not in a financial position to do so.

Nor did i think about looking around for hire prices when my insurance company recommended i went through auxillis who sorted everything out for me!

 

My only concern is whether they can argue that i should have used my savings- which as previously mentioned is for other purposes

In my experience, the savings argument can go either way. Your help to buy loan - presumably this is the scheme where the govt loans 20% of the new build house cost leaving you to raise a 5% deposit with a 75% mortgage? This could be a good enough reason. But the court will consider all the circumstances. We don't know the figures in question here, but if e.g. the credit hire was £2000 and the equivalent spot hire was £750.00 - the Court will probably look at whether using £750 of your savings would have caused you any undue hardship. If the spot hire was say £2,000 vs credit hire charges of £6,000.00 then you may have a better argument that forking out £2000 would cause you more hardship.

Any issues such as this will need to be detailed in your witness statement. The bar is set fairly low for claimants so when the solicitors send you a witness statement to sign, make sure it details the point about your savings and why you think you should not be using them.

As Ganymede has said already the advice regarding not providing financials to your solicitors is bad advice.

If this is in litigation, you will need to prove you were impecunious and to do that you will need to give them all the financial information they are asking for. If you don't you will cause yourself 2 problems. Firstly, without financials, there will be no successful impecuniosity argument and the spot hire rates will be awarded by the Court. This will leave a shortfall in the hire charges. If that happens because you did not cooperate with the solicitors instructed by Auxillis, then I believe there is a clause in their credit hire agreement giving them the right to pursue you for any shortfalls if you don't cooperate with their appointed solicitors.

Cooperating fully with Auxillis' Solicitors will reduce this risk.

Having said all this, depending on the difference between the credit hire and spot hire rates, the likelihood of this seeing the inside of a courtroom is slim - particularly as liability for the accident is admitted. These cases often settle before they get that far, particularly on the small claims track. Auxillis will have a bottom line figure that they will accept for the hire charges.

You don't have to give them statements for all your accounts.

Just give them statements for your current account and unless you had thousands at point of hiring the car, that should be sufficient.

Thankyou for this advice.

Hire car cost is 2.5k.

I’m a 24 year old hence higher rate for being under 25.

I have submitted my financial statements to the solicitor and all I can do is wait.

I have explained I owe help to buy in June next year,

I’m saving for a wedding and funding for my PhD is about to run out

and therefore I need to save for shortfall whilst I write up.

All I can do is wait.

The whole thing is very unfair,

I acted in good faith,

I wasn’t aware there was such difference in cost and

I simply followed the advice of my insurer . Much of my savings is in a joint account and one of the savings account is fixed with a no withdrawal clause. Waiting game now I suppose.

Hi,

I was just reading up on hire company car issues and have found myself in a similar situation that you described earlier this year in the forum.

I had a car accident a few weeks ago and I was not at fault and my insurance company have referred me on to the solicitors and they offered to repair my car and give me a hire car to use, which I accepted as I believed this was something I was entitled to since I was not at fault. I am now being asked to provide all my bank details and find this very bizarre. I have called the solicitors and they say that they plan to get all costs covered by the other person's car insurance, which brings me back to why am I providing my bank details??

I came across this forum and began reading your post and other posts on the forum to get advice and see if other people have been in this situation. May I ask what happened with your situation? Did the solicitors manage to claim back costs from the other insurance company? Did you encounter any other further problems/costs? and were you happy to pass on your bank statements? I have never dealt with an insurance claim before and thought this was going to be a simple to ensure my car is repaired, but have realised there is a lot more to this. I read in the forum that you did pass on you bank details to the solicitors. Did you find this was a safe thing to do or did they make you pay for anything?

Is this all a normal process???

Many Thanks.

carthings, you need to create your own thread so advice doesnt get mixed up with the info on this one.

carthings, you need to create your own thread so advice doesnt get mixed up with the info on this one.

carthings - once you have your own post I will respond...

In the exact same boat at the moment. Just want it too end

Hello and welcome to CAG.

If you'd like our advice on your problem, you need to start a new thread of your own please.

Best, HB

To add to the above advice to start your own thread, I should point out that this thread is over a year old and the original poster – Northerngirl has not returned to the forum.

We have no idea how this turned out.

Please start your own thread and lay your whole story out there and you will get some proper help and support.