Helping Enterprise car rental recover fees

[dukeboy749r]

To the PH collective who work in the car insurance field, I'd appreciate your advice, please?

My wife's car was hit by (as it turned out) an uninsured 3rd party as they fled from the police, some three years ago.

The twunt in question was driving an insured vehicle that he had bought [or stolen] the day before, but he, personally, did not have insurance.

He fled the police some 2 miles away and then at this particular junction which he turned into is a narrow lane, bordered on the nearside by a Church and the other side is a wall which is right up against the road. My wife in her car, was three cars back taking our son and daughter to school. The Transit van hit our car on the passenger side door, only prevented from killing my daughter because of the side step, which (thankfully) took the brunt of his speed.

Not enough to put the driver off, he then reversed and fled towards the town centre (and three large schools who all are located on this road) where he narrowly missed a number of pupils, hit one school bus and was only stopped because Post Office post boxes are (or were in this case) made of cast iron.

Twunt arrested and jailed for (not enough) a number of years.

Now Enterprise have had a solicitor write to me asking me to help them recover their costs.

My insurance (LV) told me at the time to get onto Enterprise and get a replacement vehicle - which we did, but LV now state it is nothing to do with them and I simply need to deal with the solicitor acting on behalf of Enterprise.

A bit of a faff, but no real problem helping (albeit nearly three years after the accident), but how come LV get to wash their hands of this and why don't Enterprise/their solicitor use the details given to them in the accident report to pursue this claim?

Many thanks for any relevant advice.

Many thanks



Enterprise have been unable to recover the funds from the othe parties insurance

[Sheepshanks]

dukeboy749r said:

Now Enterprise have had a solicitor write to me asking me to help them recover their costs.

Don't know if this is a normal credit hire agreement - if so, I think you're obliged to help, on pain of being required to settle it yourself, but doesn't sound like it's going to get them anywhere.

[Hashtaggggg]

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

[anonymous-user]

Hashtaggggg said:

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

[Pegscratch]

charltjr said:

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

This statement sums it up nicely.

You can not help them if you choose to OP, but be ready to pay. I would help them. It's unlikely to be onerous.

[dukeboy749r]

charltjr said:

Hashtaggggg said:

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

Yes, that's how it looks.

Many thanks

[Lonely]

charltjr said:

Hashtaggggg said:

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

I might be just having a 'senior moment' but I don't understand this. I looked on Confused.com at their advice and it looks like Hashtag is correct -

The main risk with credit hire, is that when you sign for the car, the costs are in your name. As daily charges build up, you’ll be the one responsible for them until an insurer accepts liability and agrees to all of the costs. If it turns out that you’re at fault for the accident, or these costs are disputed by the other insurer, the credit hire company will look to you for payment.

Is the 'help' the OP is being asked for money to cover the hire car?

[Hashtaggggg]

charltjr said:

Hashtaggggg said:

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

Really?

So, how does it work?

The hire company wants paying and the hirer (in this case the OP) may have signed an agreement that makes him liable if the costs cannot be recovered.

I hope I am wrong for the OP's sake.

[Lonely]

Found a very detailed article here - https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/what-is-credit-hi...

And a PH discussion here - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=18...

Appears to be a massive scam by insurance companies.

[ralphrj]

Hashtaggggg said:

charltjr said:

Hashtaggggg said:

You signed a hire agreement making you liable if they cannot recover the costs from the 3rd party?

Hope not, but I suspect you are going to dip into your wallet.

Are they looking for much money?

That’s not how it works. You’re obligated to help them recover costs if they ask, but if they can’t then you don’t have to pay.

Really?

So, how does it work?

The hire company wants paying and the hirer (in this case the OP) may have signed an agreement that makes him liable if the costs cannot be recovered.

I hope I am wrong for the OP's sake.

There is usually an ATE (After The Event) insurance policy provided with the car hire that will settle the costs if the claim is unsuccessful. However, this is only used if it is not possible to recover costs from the other party (or their insurers). The OP will have signed to say they will assist with the claim and they should do so until it is either settled or abandoned.

[rriggs]

If it was a credit hire agreement (as many of these “courtesy cars” are now) then theoretically you could be legally liable for any unrecoverable credit hire costs.

Most of the time the costs are recovered from the third party. Often when they are not the costs are too small for people like Enterprise to go after them.

However, if the amount is unrecoverable and is big enough then Enterprise will go after them. The6 will ask for assistance from you from giving a statement up to appearing in court.

If they are still unable to recover the theoretically they can ask you to pay up but this rarely happens (according to Enterprise themselves who I went through this with a few years back).

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Lonely said:

I might be just having a 'senior moment' but I don't understand this. I looked on Confused.com at their advice and it looks like Hashtag is correct -

The main risk with credit hire, is that when you sign for the car, the costs are in your name. As daily charges build up, you’ll be the one responsible for them until an insurer accepts liability and agrees to all of the costs. If it turns out that you’re at fault for the accident, or these costs are disputed by the other insurer, the credit hire company will look to you for payment.

Is the 'help' the OP is being asked for money to cover the hire car?

That's why they are called Confused.com, because they don't understand what they are talking about. There's other total rubbish on their site too, like utter guff about act of god that's total bks.

As others have said, if you help them to try and recover their costs, you won't be liable even if they fail. But if you don't help them, you will be liable for costs .