As you may have read MrsO danced with death* the other day and had an accident against a big Matalan lorry

*Not wishing to exagerate, she slid into it at about 2 mph, but the car took a fair battering, as the truck caught it, and spun it round and mashed up most of the drivers side from bumper to door.

But anyway, the car was collected that day and taken somwhere, she was dropped off and we waited, now bear in mind this crash happened last Tuesday. So after some silence she chased it up and after some toing / froing / more toing and some more froing, it turns out that Hastings (her insurance company) had lost her car.

So after some more chasing it was found in Aldershot, she crashed at Clacketts! So thats handy!

She then said to Hastings, where is my courtesy car and they said its not provided by them, but by the garage who is undertaking the repairs, and will not be released until they have undertaken an appraisal on the car and worked out if its written off or repairable. I can only imagine it will be repairable, unless the geometry or chassis has been affected, which I doubt.

But anyway, surely her insurance and her courtesy entitlement are with Hastings and mnot some random garage in Aldershot!

I sense we are about to taken outside, have our trousers whipped down and.. well you know the rest! I have never claimed on my own insurance, so what's the deal here?

Any advice?

Thanks

Oh dear...hope MrsO was OK.

First we need to establish who is responsible for the accident, MrsO or the Matalan lorry as this will decide on how this claim is handled......

If MrsO is to blame then unfortunately she is not guaranteed a courtesy car and this would only be provided by the garage carrying out the repair at their discretion. Please bear in mind this would just be any courtesy car available, not necessarily a like for like vehicle and only if they have one available etc. Unfortunately, if the car is not repairable then they do not have to provide any courtesy vehicle at all.

If the Matalan lorry is at fault then you are entitled to a courtesy car from the start of the claim until your vehicle is returned back to you or an offer for the vehicle, if it is written off, is made to you and accepted. This should be a like for like vehicle and if needbe the insurers can hire one in especially for you as they will claim all the outlay back from the Matalan lorry insurers.

Unfortunately, as you say MrsO slid into the lorry then I think you will be saying that it is MrsO fault and therefore, unfortunately, not that this is what you want to hear, but Hastings or the garage dealing with the repairs do not at any point have to provide you with a courtesy car, sorry.


Regards
Sarah (Mrs Jase)

Thanks Sarah, it was MrsOs fault, no question on that, so I guess we just have to wait and hope then

From Hastings' website (although it took a bit of digging)



So, basically, the offer of a courtesy car forms part of your contract with Hastings and it's up to them to honour it, unless they decide your wife's car is going to be written off.

Thanks Andrew, it appears that the issue now is that the garage hasn't assessed the car, thus the work hasn't started. Then the real problem is, that no-one is really sure where the car is, the insurance company state its at the garage, but the garage say 'nope it ain't here' so we think it's still hidden round the back of Clacketts, which is where it was towed originally

But BREAKING NEWS its getting assessed and taken to the garage today!

Well only 2 and a half weeks later, she gets her courtesy car