Claims Frequently Asked Questions

Only if you’re VAT registered; but you will be able to claim it back via your VAT return.

The choice to hire a vehicle is at your discretion. But be mindful, it’s not covered by your insurance, so you’ll have to pay the costs upfront yourself. If the claim is not your fault and there is a negligent third party, we can look to recover it from the third party or their insurers. However, this can be a protracted and drawn out process, so it’s possible that you’ll be out of pocket for the hire costs for sometime. It’s important that you take this into consideration before taking the decision to go ahead with the vehicle hire.

Although some policies do they can be prohibitively expensive. So it’s likely your policy doesn’t provide a hire vehicle. It might provide a courtesy vehicle. See below for more details.

If you use an insurer’s approved repairer, the majority of the time this service includes a courtesy vehicle. It’s important to know that a courtesy vehicle is not a hire vehicle so will not be a like for like to your vehicle. In all probability it will be a small runabout, such as a Ford KA sized vehicle. The repairer may be able to provide a courtesy van but it’s likely this will be a car derived van.

Yes, all we’ll need is the estimate and photos of the damage and we’ll ask insurers to contact the repairer to agree costs. The downside of using your own repairer is we can’t insist that a courtesy vehicle is provided. And most importantly, if there’s a problem with the repairer’s quality of work, insurers will be of limited assistance in remedying the problem. However, if they’re a repairer known to you, you’ll already know the quality of their work.

As far as you’re concerned this is no different to being hit by a UK registered vehicle. A recovery can still be made but the mechanism deployed to achieve the recovery is slightly different. Your insurer will write to a UK Handling Agent, they in turn will write to the relevant country’s handling agent who will then write to the third party’s insurers. This longer chain can mean the time to achieve settlement is longer then you would normally expect.

Independent witnesses are very important as they could determine who is responsible for the incident, which in turn could make the difference between your insurers recovering their costs or not.  This is important because if all costs are recovered by your insurers the claim won’t impact on your future premiums. Always obtain contact details (name and telephone number) of any witnesses at the scene; we will then ensure your insurers contact them immediately to obtain a statement whilst it is still clear in their minds.

If this incident has been reported for information only, this means that the policyholder wishes to deal with all claims themselves. This includes any claim being made against them by a third party as well as the damage, if any, to the policyholder’s own car.

We realise the majority of policyholders are honest but are aware a small number provide false information. It is important we identify them to protect the majority from rising costs. There are databases through which information is shared with other companies. We also share information with the police. Please refer to the policy wording for details on how information is shared.

If this incident has been reported and the cover is third party only or third party fire and theft, this means the damage to the insured vehicle is not covered. However, damage to the third party is covered.