Replacement Car Hire, Effect on Compensation Payout

Insurers may push you to accept hire before you are ready

Something we often mention here on the Camps Solicitors website, and something we are rightly proud to be able to offer, is our like-for-like replacement hire service. With this service, we aim to match you up with a replacement vehicle as close as possible in terms of make and model to your own. We provide this service at no cost to our clients for as long as it takes their own vehicle to be repaired, or for an alternative vehicle to be bought. All sounds great doesn’t it; but what happens if your injuries mean you aren’t able to drive?

If you’ve been in an accident that has left you with serious injuries, or a lasting disability that has left you unable to drive, then having a hire car provided to you, even if it is at no cost, isn’t going to be of much use. In fact, accepting a hire car at the earliest possible opportunity (before you have recovered enough to be able to make use of it) can actually lead to you getting a poor deal for your compensation claim.

Short-changed for thousands of pounds of compensation

When it comes to injury claims, insurance companies will always try to pay out the minimum possible compensation to an accident victim, after all they are in business to make money. One of the ways an insurance company can limit the amount of compensation they have to pay is by showing that the accident victim’s injuries are either not as severe, or not as long lasting as they are making them out to be. This is where the offer of a hire car from an insurance company might be seen as a cynical gesture.

By giving you a hire car to use, the insurance company might later be tempted to make out that your injuries were not as severe, and that you had mostly recovered. After all, they might argue that you can’t have been that unwell as you took up the offer of a hire car. Many unsuspecting and quite legitimate accident victims might find themselves short-changed for thousands of pounds of compensation if they fall for this tactic.

Get a better deal with Camps Solicitors

As specialist personal injury solicitors, here at Camps we are dedicated to making sure you don’t get ripped off when you make a personal injury claim. Our lawyers are wise to all the tricks insurance companies are likely to pull to short-change you (the innocent victim) out of thousands of pounds of compensation.

We won’t force you to accept a hire car that you won’t (or can’t) use, and we won’t push you into settling your accident claim before you have completely recovered. Our highly successful personal injury and road traffic accident solicitors will be fighting from the very start of your claim to make sure you receive 100% of the compensation you deserve.