A Hire Car And Legal Cover For £10

How would you like to pay for insurance after an event happens? You can get a hire car and legal cover after a motor accident in precisely this way. And it's cheap!

Endeavouring to inject some humour into this article, I asked a friend: "What's so funny about car insurance?" "Nothing," he said. Slyly - I thought - I asked: "How about hire cars?" "Still nothing," he responded. Getting desperate, I said: "Hmmm. OK, how about car accidents?" By this point he'd lost patience: "Nothing. Unless you're involved." I gave up.

So rather than draw your attention to the fact this article's not the slightest bit amusing or entertaining (whoops, too late), I'll fill it with useful info instead.

If you have a no-fault accident you may be entitled to a courtesy car, but these tend to be bad for the ego: small and unimpressive. It may be you're not entitled to one at all, so the best you can hope for is that the other party's insurer admits liability quickly and provides you with one.

However, 'credit hire' companies offer an alternative. They take on no-fault claims and deal with them just like your insurer normally does. They repair your vehicle and claim the money back from the other insurer. The differences are that you don't pay an excess and you get a hire car, not a bog-standard courtesy car. This makes credit hire services appealing even to people who are entitled to a courtesy car.

The credit hire company will also claim back your uninsured losses. They'll seek to recover losses for property damage, expenses, and compensation for injuries. It's like buying legal cover, but after the event.

Amazingly, credit hire companies don't just accept no-fault cases. Sometimes they'll take on serious personal injury cases when you were as much as 80% at fault, because they can charge the other party hefty legal fees for very little work. In this regard, they're no different to any normal ambulance-chasing company.

You can get a credit hire vehicle if you have the other party's full details and if liability is clearly in your favour. Your vehicle must be undriveable if it is beyond economic repair. As long as you're honest, if they're unable to claim back the hire costs that's their problem, not yours. This is even if it turns out that, against your opinion, you were to blame for the incident.

These companies tend to offer a hit-and-miss service, but that's the same as with any insurer's claims service. Some people get lucky, others don't. It's not free, but it's cheap. Helphire, for example, charges just £10. However, the costs to the nation as a whole are greater. Credit hire companies push up the cost of everyone's insurance, as insurers have to pay the cost of hire vehicles that otherwise might not have been used.

Many credit hire companies have an agreement on hire costs with the Association of British Insurers. Make sure that the credit hire company you choose has such an agreement, or things could get a little sticky.

> Compare insurance quotes for your car insurance here at the Fool.