Rental Van Exclusions

[marting]

I was chatting to a family member on Friday night about their recent move, it was mentioned that they'd hired a transit and moved flats themselves.

Apparently there was an incident during the move and they caused some damage to the roof of the van when going up a ramp with limited height access.

From what I can gather, the rental policy excludes cover for damage to the roof and they're on the hook to pay a £6k bill for the damage.

It all seemed a little odd to me - £6k to an average person is going to have a big impact, is everything above board? IMO it seems morally grey to let someone hire something and be on the hook for this level of damage. Is it really legal to do this in the UK?

[Trabi601]

Seems to be a standard clause for rental vans. There may be an extended insurance available to cover it - but it was excluded from the cover on the last van I hired.

[Osinjak]

At the risk of sounding like another infamous member of this site, if they've damaged it why is it morally wrong to charge them for a fix? I have some sympathy as £6k is a sizeable sum but if they don't read the T&Cs and see X is excluded and then damage X then I'm struggling a bit really. What would they do if they hired out a thing, hiree damaged it and then got squirly because it's 'morally' wrong to charge them? Not trying to pick a fight here but you can't have it both ways.

[505diff]

What did the T&C's say on the contract they entered into when hiring the van? Removal costs are not cheap when hiring a company to do the hard work, but you also are paying for them to take the hit on any damage suffered while doing so.

[JM]

The hirer could accept the fee as a stupidity tax.


Tall vehicle, low roof, what could possibly go wrong.

[marting]

I wasn't questioning that if you do the damage, you should be responsible for the fix.

All was stated in the terms and conditions I imagine, it just seems odd to give Joe Bloggs a gun to shoot himself in the foot with. I would imagine a the hire company have a fair amount of hassle with people that cant/wont pay this sort of fee - IMO increasing your insurance and passing the cost on seems like much less hassle than taking people to court etc.

[patby]

I worked for a major hire company 20 years ago. Overhead damage was always hirers responsibility and had to be signed as such on the rental agreement.
Was there specific mention of this on the agreement with either signature or initials required.

[Yipper]

We recently rented a van for a weekend to clean out some junk. When I queried the ridiculous charges and excesses for even minor damage, the desk lady told me they had to be strict and expensive because a) most renters do not give a sh*t, some vans look like they have been in a demolition derby, and b) the bosses get bonused for maximising aftersales profits.

[addsvrs]

I hired a van today, once I managed to get through all the security / I.D checks, insurance was brought up and indeed any roof damage costs was down to me which is fair enough. Examples given of low bridges / multi storey car parks etc etc.
On the pre checks I asked how was I supposed to makesure no existing damage was on the roof, Hi Top Sprinter, as neither of us could see. Cue some whispered conversations between the staff (I may have been a bit grumpy due to how bloody long it was taking) and a solution was found. Park the van underneath a upstairs window so we could see lol.

As a side note a cant believe how awful a 66 plate / 1000 mile Merc Sprinter van is

[cmaguire]

From their perspective I expect it is fairly common for your average car driver to rent a van thinking they are competent to drive it, then promptly smash it up because it isn't their Mundaneo and they aren't quite as competent as they think they are. And the height is an obvious difference. The insurers for the rental companies probably have restrictions on payouts for this very reason (too many idiots can't judge heights) and thus this type of damage costs the rental companies disproportionately. So they don't include it fully.

There is a van rental company near me that even has pictures of a local bridge with one of their vans wedged under it to make a point because this has happened several times. The bridge even has warning signs yet idiots crash into it.

[anth7714]

last time I hired van they gave me an option to purchase what they called insurance waiver cover - this essentially removed all excess fees. However they stipulated and made you sign a form to say if you reversed into something the excess with something crazy like £2k

[TwigtheWonderkid]

cmaguire said:

The insurers for the rental companies probably have restrictions on payouts for this very reason (too many idiots can't judge heights) and thus this type of damage costs the rental companies disproportionately. So they don't include it fully.

I've never seen a single self drive hire policy issued by an insurance co to a rental company that excludes roof damage. So they have insurance in place to cover it. So can only assumes it happens so often, that the rental firm don't want to put the claims thru their insurance as it will push up their future premiums. So they make the hirer responsible.

[majordad]

Yep, close the thread, the PH jury has spoken, Guilty, send in the next Christian !

[elanfan]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

cmaguire said:

The insurers for the rental companies probably have restrictions on payouts for this very reason (too many idiots can't judge heights) and thus this type of damage costs the rental companies disproportionately. So they don't include it fully.

I've never seen a single self drive hire policy issued by an insurance co to a rental company that excludes roof damage. So they have insurance in place to cover it. So can only assumes it happens so often, that the rental firm don't want to put the claims thru their insurance as it will push up their future premiums. So they make the hirer responsible.

Id go along with this too. I used to process van insurance, fleets etc I don't recall ever seeing an incidence of roof damage. It can't be that common that an insurer would exclude it. I'd want to see their policy (not their terms) as maybe this is a scam where they make money out of accidents. Do you know for CERTAIN that this isn't pre existing damage? Also how much damage was done to cause £6k of work. I'd certainly want to see repair bills etc smells a bit to me.

[Cold]

majordad said:

Guilty, send in the next Christian !

[Sheepshanks]

anth7714 said:

last time I hired van they gave me an option to purchase what they called insurance waiver cover - this essentially removed all excess fees. However they stipulated and made you sign a form to say if you reversed into something the excess with something crazy like £2k

It was certainly £1K when I hired a van years ago, so £2K is very feasible these days, but it could be waived to £100 for a pretty small amount - like a fiver for the weekend. They tried to charge me the £100 for a new bullseye on the screen - it did happen while I had it, but the screen had half-a-dozen of them already and they let it go when I objected.


In the OPs case, as well as the repair costs they're probably also charging for the time the van is unavailable for hire.

[hairyben]

elanfan said:

Id go along with this too. I used to process van insurance, fleets etc I don't recall ever seeing an incidence of roof damage. It can't be that common that an insurer would exclude it. I'd want to see their policy (not their terms) as maybe this is a scam where they make money out of accidents. Do you know for CERTAIN that this isn't pre existing damage? Also how much damage was done to cause £6k of work. I'd certainly want to see repair bills etc smells a bit to me.

What kind of fleets? I'd imagine rental vans suffer much more than regular van drivers, people just jumping in and driving the same route they've been a million times and what could go wrBANG

New roof inc labour on a hi top van looks like it could easily run to 6k IMO, not a small job, and then theres loss of earnings.

[4rephill]

Cold said:

majordad said:

Guilty, send in the next Christian !

How can it be racist? - As with most other religions, followers of Christianity come from all manner of different races, so by mentioning Christians, no particular race has been singled out.

You could try to claim that it's religious discrimination, but as it's a reference comparing what has happened in this incident with the OP's family member, to the Roman's sending Christians to the lions, the use of "Christian" is perfectly acceptable and not discriminatory in any way, shape or form.

patby said:

I worked for a major hire company 20 years ago. Overhead damage was always hirers responsibility and had to be signed as such on the rental agreement.
Was there specific mention of this on the agreement with either signature or initials required.

There will be a section at the end of the hire contract that will state something along the lines of:

"I confirm that I have read all of the terms and conditions of the hire contract and agree to abide by those terms" or such like, which is then signed by the person renting the van and dated.

The reality is, very few people bother to read all of the T/C's on the contract and just sign it and get on their way, but that's not the fault of the hire company if the customer can't be arsed to spend 15 minutes or so reading all of the details of the contract, that's the customers responsibility.

So long as the roof exclusion is included in the T/C's then it doesn't have to be specifically highlighted and signed for (I have hired numerous vans in the past, including Luton box vans and long wheelbase sprinter vans from various companies, some highlighted the roof damage exclusion, some didn't, but it was always there in the T/C's that I signed).

The problem with driving a van when you're not used to it, is that, you have to get used to it's dimensions, and you have to drive it a bit differently from a car.

With the long wheelbase vans for example, you have to remember to swing away from the junction or tight bend a bit when turning, and actually drive slightly further past junctions than you would in a car, to avoid cutting the corner with the rear end of the van.

With the taller vans, you also have to pay more attention to low lying branches and such like (especially with the Luton box vans).

When you first drive the van, you tend to be very aware of everything and make an extra effort with your driving to avoid any incidents and accidents. Then, once you become a bit more used to the van, you relax a bit, feeling more comfortable with driving it, and that's when you tend to have an incident, because you forget about all of the precautions you'd previously been taking.

As for reversing a van, that takes some serious getting used to due to the lengths involved and the massive blind spots behind them.

I wonder if roof damage is specifically excluded from the insurance of the van from the insurers side of things, or the rental company's? (My monies on the rental company's as it must lower their insurance costs dramatically).

What I will say is, having driven a few vans in My time, I have a lot more respect for those who drive them on a daily basis than I used to have! - They can be tricky buggers to manoeuvre at times!

[anonymous-user]

I'm surprised anyone would think it unusual. There are loads of exclusions on cars, vans and 4 x 4 where any underside damage is excluded.

Only sensible to arrange separate cover beforehand.

[Cold]

4rephill said:

How can it be racist?

Got one!

Replace the word "Christian" with the name of another well known religion and see sparks fly from offended types. (I should add that I'm not offended either way and that gif was tongue-in-cheek. Other facial based expressions are available.)