Motor Trust... A bit like Bankers Trust

[davemercedes]

The latest reason why everyone's insurance premiums have rocketed:

Motorists could win £30m compensation from Europcar

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40630238

In this page they quote a likely payout of £30M to settle overcharges to British Motorists.

Apparently the SFO are investigating.
- So stand by for those famous last words: "...X has agreed to pay a fine of £YM"

I really get angry with these quotes that show the lack of justice where big money is involved... it's not "a fine was imposed" but "they agreed to pay" as in "this was the result of their bargaining".

But in the same week some little "Joe Soap" will get sent down for defrauding the NI or similar of £1000 or something. Neither is right of course but the big money "lot" always seem to get preferential treatment and those who did the deed always seem to get off scot free on the company's account. Just like banks and other big companies like Tesco.​

 

[d215yq]

How is this linked to anyone's insurance premiums? People who hired a car from Europcar who DIDN'T TAKE THE EXCESS INSURANCE were then charged extortionate damages for the repairs. Europcar now has to/agreed to pay 30m in damages. It's kneejerk reactions and made up causation which is why it's impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone nowadays

I've had the experience of a hire car company trying to charge me for damages I didn't cause and it's not nice, particualrly as I believe it was systematic and not an error... I even started a thread on here about it without making a bizarre claim that it affected everyones motor insurance premiums...

 

[davemercedes]

Europcar have not yet agreed to pay any damages. The article says motorists could win £30M compensation from them - they are being investigated by UK Trading Standards and the SFO. In a statement, they said: "Europcar's view is that the implications of the investigation will be somewhere in the region of £30m." They said they had no further comment to make.

Regarding your comments: a lot of insurance policies still include things like hire car when an accident occurs (e.g.: Saga - no extra cost). And of course the excess insurance is in itself a mini policy that goes up in price according to what they pay out nationally each year - so it ripples down to everybody apart from those few who decide not take that cover. Either way, the insurer for the "responsible" party in an accident ends up paying the charges for the hire car etc and all the costs insurance companies incur similarly all ripple down into the premiums we pay - they don't absorb those costs!

Motor Insurance has already gone up by an average of £132 (year on year 18%) anyway - partly driven by the "Ogden Rate Cut" i.e.: the government's reform of the formula used to calculate lump-sum compensation settlements for victims of road accidents as well as other personal injury payments. The article above shows that insurance premiums have risen by £100 in just four months:

https://www.confused.com/on-the-road/cost-of-motoring/what-the-price-index-means-for-you

As I said earlier, my main gripe is the way large companies and banks etc seem to "buy their way out" of such situations - where you or I would probably be banged up, they simply "agree to pay a fine" (spending their shareholders and ultimately customers money in the process) on a get out of jail free card! Their lawyers must have a nice little earner too!

 

[d215yq]

I think the connection with insurance is a red herring. I hire a few times a year across Europe/UK and at an average of 6€ a day - 6€ a day! You can't rent a bike for that and it's brand new cars from airports (where ground rent is high). So what they do is charge an outrageous price for the excess waiver insurance and then scare people to buying it. And yet most people now know that sites like carhireexcess.co.uk give you a year's cover for 40 quid so reject it. So they then just invent damages/charge outrageously as without doing that the business model does not make money.

As I see it the people who pay this are subsidising the impossibly cheap hire car prices but I'm not prepared to pay more than I have to so I suppose I can't complain.

As to what makes your insurance so high no idea but it's very cheap here in Spain (and logically priced - 3rd party costs a third of what comprehensive costs). But then everyone has 3rd party and nobody repairs any "cosmetic" bumps and shunts and cars are older. I suppose the real reason it goes up so much is because people keep buying ever more expensive to repair cars (1k light units?) with ever smaller tyres that damage ever more expensive alloys, etc. The fraud or whatever they say is convenient for the industry but is probably a rather "insignificant" proportion.

 

[davemercedes]

I agree with you on hire - especially in Spain. I usually prebook online with Record RentaCar at some crazy price - half what the renter's own site quotes and they include full damage waiver - they tell you to pay any excess and just reclaim it - I followed up a number of customer references and AFAIK they were genuine when they said it had been refunded. On the last trip I ended up with a Hertz car for pennies and I was chatting to one of the guys on the desk and asked why I couldn't get the same prioce from them on my club card (I still had one from my work days). He said it was very annoying because of course they give discount to Record on the low price we pay but he made no attempt to price match. Where the hire companies get us Brits (as I'm sure you know is with no cover on tyres... I never blew a tyre before until that holiday - I reversed (not quickly) in a dead end and the friendly road-workers had left a nice jagged piece of kerb in the road, which split and blew the tyre. It was cheaper to go to a tyre repair place and get a cheap-ish tyre fitted than drive back to the airport for them to swap it and charge me.

 

[d215yq]

Aah, the old "YOUR TYRES AREN'T COVERED BY THE INSURANCE POLICY YOUVE BOUGHT HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY SLEEP AT NIGHT" scam. I just pointed out to them I drive 20k miles a year in my own vehicle and if I destroy a tyre on that I have to replace it at my cost so why should I be more worried about taking the same risk for a few hundred miles in a hire car.

I have no problem with replacing the tyres if I damage them to be honest, it's the fact they use it to aggressively sell their cover that bothers me

 

[davemercedes]

Aah, the old "YOUR TYRES AREN'T COVERED BY THE INSURANCE POLICY YOUVE BOUGHT HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY SLEEP AT NIGHT" scam. I just pointed out to them I drive 20k miles a year in my own vehicle and if I destroy a tyre on that I have to replace it at my cost so why should I be more worried about taking the same risk for a few hundred miles in a hire car.

I have no problem with replacing the tyres if I damage them to be honest, it's the fact they use it to aggressively sell their cover that bothers me

Yup. Like you, I always tell them to go ply (see what I did?) and multiforth but just once in fifty years I got stung for a tyre.

At a growing average of say £20 for 50 years = £1000 less 1 tyre replaced say £50 (probably less because I bought a "budget" tyre), I'm still £950 in pocket!

Not sure about Spain but in Greece/Cyprus etc they don't cover the underside of the car. I have never in 50 years ever had someone even look underneath when I took a car back off hire! But I have sent hire cars back because 1) all 4 x tyres were bald (really bald) and 2) the dipstick showed absolutely zero oil in the engine. In the Greek islands I've always got the best deal from local renter companies who have also done things like sending me to their cousins (superb) restaurant or arranging for me to leave the car at the airport etc. One guy in Crete (VERY genuine people) sent his son with us to bring it back and he flatly refused a tip! - Most of the time, I think it's the way you talk with/to people.

 

[d215yq]

Not sure about Spain but in Greece/Cyprus etc they don't cover the underside of the car. I have never in 50 years ever had someone even look underneath when I took a car back off hire! But I have sent hire cars back because 1) all 4 x tyres were bald (really bald) and 2) the dipstick showed absolutely zero oil in the engine. In the Greek islands I've always got the best deal from local renter companies who have also done things like sending me to their cousins (superb) restaurant or arranging for me to leave the car at the airport etc. One guy in Crete (VERY genuine people) sent his son with us to bring it back and he flatly refused a tip! - Most of the time, I think it's the way you talk with/to people.

Greece and Cyprus really do stand out as places where the poeple are 100% genuine and such a pleasure to deal with and really go the extra mile. Perhaps in rural parts of Italy/France/Spain you still get that genuineness and haelpfulness but in more popular parts it's certainly nothing like it.

As for not covering the underside I assume that's because there are plenty of "off road opportunities" and there's probably a few who do an awful lot of obvious damage by doing somwething stupid which the insurance is right not to cover

 

[keefysher]

Over the years on site have proven the old adage about hire cars going anywhere.

During construction of a 18Km long overland conveyor we used to call out recovery cranes from the hire company as a jeep would have fallen down a ravine. At one point the major hire companies refused our business due to the number of lost 4x4's!!! Fortunately one that needed the business kept supplying us. But we only had lightweight suzukis, that were very good but not really strong enough to withstand bottoming through storm ditches, often bending axles. At which point a quick trip to Eilat to swap over, where the damaged one would be rented out to a tourist to go drive the red desert area and be charged for the damage!!

In West Virginia once I picked up a brand new rental car, not 4x4, with just 7 miles on the clock. Drove to site expecting to use a 4x4 to drive the line, but none were available. I drove the line, basically over a mountain, off road and arrived at a bridgehead several hundred feet above the operations office and reported on the two way no fault found. The reply was how had I got up there without a 4x4, answer, have rental car will travel!! That car was returned to the airport lot minus both bumpers, a hole in the floor in the passenger footwell where I'd hit a big rock somewhere on the drive, and was a grimy slimy covered mess.

Another time the only available rental car was a pontiac trans am. Put a first motion drive shaft in the boot to take to a machine shop nearby. A bit unbalanced rolling the car on a freeway.

The good ole days