HF has seen four successes in quick succession holding credit hire companies to account and saving a huge amount of potential cost for insurer clients Admiral, Hastings Direct, KGM Underwriting Services and LV= General Insurance.

A claimant dropped his £252,000 claim for credit hire and other losses following an investigation carried out by Admiral Insurance and HF, resulting in the claimant’s credit hire organisation agreeing to pay Admiral’s defence costs totalling £40,000.

The investigations, including surveillance and vehicle records, showed that the credit hire claim was unnecessary since the claimant had, in fact, repaired his vehicle to a roadworthy standard after the accident and it had been MOT’d twice during the hire period, each time showing increased mileage.

KGM Underwriting Services and HF successfully defended a credit hire claim of over £100,000 and secured significant costs against the credit hire company (£15,000) who hired the vehicle to a fraudster, having demonstrated their significant involvement in the litigation.

A similar success with Hastings Direct resulted in saving £56,000 in credit hire costs, with the credit hire organisation ordered to pay £35,000 in legal fees. Again, in-depth investigations by the HF intelligence team evidenced that the claimant’s vehicle was roadworthy and MOT’d during the hire period and showed around 3,000 additional miles had been covered.

HF and LV= General Insurance successfully recovered £15,000 of their wasted costs from a credit hire company after they defended a claim said to have been deliberately orchestrated between the claimant and LV= General Insurance’s ex-customer to receive compensation. After links were identified between the storage provider used by the claimant and the ex-customer, and an engineer’s report concluded that the damage was inconsistent, the claimant discontinued his £130,000 claim of which £104,000 was for credit hire.

Graeme Mulvoy, Partner at HF said, “Regrettably, all too often we see large sums being claimed for credit hire and we do not expect this to change when fixed recoverable costs is extended in October. Our investigations proved that these claims were unfounded and two fraudulent and we are very encouraged that the hire companies have been held liable for our client’s costs, the combined total being £100,000, by the judiciary. These cases demonstrate very clearly that those who organise, orchestrate or enable hire claims cannot get away with it. And that organisations working with any fraudsters will be held to account.”

Credit Hire