>>Reputable.
All the firms that I dealt with were independent - i.e. not owned by any insurance company. We walked away from a number of companies that were not reputable.
They got paid about 1 in 4 times. Plus they had to bear the cost of sourcing the vehicles, running the business, borrowing money to stay in business etc. The compound interest on an unpaid hire bill ramps up quickly. I recall net profits were c2% to 3% of turnover.
They used industry agreed hire rates. Agreed by the insurance companies' trade body. Again, we walked from firms that used rates in excess of the ABI rates.
They provided a service to people that didn't qualify for a curtesy car and had no other means of getting a temporary replacement. A lot of customers were sole traders who's vans were damaged etc. Should innocent victims in an accident be left without transport if they don't have the means to get a temporary replacement - remember they have the right to be put in the same position as they were before the accident?
The credit hire companies all did due diligence. They looked at claims, got financial details from the renter etc.
Remember, you should not be offered credit hire if you can afford to hire a temporary vehicle yourself. This is the very first test undertaken by reputable credit hire companies.
Not one company that I dealt with pursued an individual for the hire where a claim was lost, settled "50/50" or "knock for knock" by the insurance company and only did so where there was clear evidence that they were lied to. We used to get monthly KPIs from the businesses and the number of charges to the hirers was about 1 a month from hundreds of hires and was where the credit hire company had clearly been deceived.
I have personal experience of a bad credit hire company owned by a major insurer. They insisted Mrs Z get a credit hire car despite her having £20k in her current account. If it went to court then the credit hire co would not have got their money from the 3rd party as Mrs Z had the means to temporarily replace the damaged car. In the end we rented a car from Enterprise at £35ish a day.
Last edited by: zippy on Tue 12 Nov 19 at 00:37
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Credit Hire Bill of £400k new
Credit Hire Bill of £400k new