Hi Kirsty, I would phone them and ask their procedure what happens if the other insurer is not paying for the car hire because it sounds to me as if you will be another person receiving a letter asking you to authorise proceedings in your name and what will happen if they cannot recover the money via court proceedings. (I would be interested to hear what they say.) If we had the car for 10 days and the insurer is not paying there is a good chance you will be in the same position. It seems to me that they are dragging out the decision and I bet they did not encourage you to return the car to keep the costs low. We still have no response to our letter from Claimfast were we asked these questions but we had a call from Claimfast asking if we received their letter dated.... which again we did not. (Second time they refer to post we never received). Funny that, only Claimfast's letters seem to get lost in post. That is why they do not seem trustworthy.

There you can see the difference. We had absolutely nothing in writing from Claimfast. Everything was done via phone (sometimes in a rush because they phoned me at work) and it all seemed to me as "part of the service" I was offered through the AA who put me onto Claimfast in the first place. Even the AA website says that they are "our preferred in house claims handler" who will provide me with a car, it does not say credit hire car nor does the leaflet I have received from the AA about Claimfast says anything about a credit hire car. I have dealt with other insurance claims before and the handling of it was similar, organising repair, getting a replacemenet car, therefore I did not think that this was any different. Considering a replacement car was part of my insurance anyway I did not realise that there is more to it because they did not explain all the ins and outs properly. I cannot even remember signing any agreement apart from the rental agreement and if I had then it could only have been at the rental place when I picked up the car after they had already picked up my car for repair. So even if I would then not have liked their terms and conditions, it would have been too late then because I needed a car, plus it is likely that I would not have there and then fully understood the agreement anyway. I cannot recall that I was explained anything at the rental place either, I understood to be signing a rental agreement with the rental company. It all was done in a rush as well as I had to go to work. At the moment I am trying to establish if I have actually signed the agreement.

The problem with Claimfast is procedures. They appear dodgy because their procedures are not good. It is not good if you suggest to people that they are due a replacement car as part of the service and if it then comes to court proceedings they ask you to sign statements where you have to confirm that you have mitigated your losses. They do not ask you to mitigate your losses upfront, i.e. do you really need a car, can you take a smaller car etc. of course this is not in their interest. I even said to the rental company that I would be happy with a smaller car but this was apparently not possible. The fact that you read similar comments on the internet suggests that I am not the only one who is not happy with that company and their procedures. It is not good procedure if you present people with a credit hire agreement and terms and conditions the moment you get your rental car and your own car is already been taken away. What would have been correct is sending is sending the agreement out upfront so that people can read through it, ask questions if they do not understand it and then proceed further. You can of course cancel the agreement afterwards but then you end up with the costs for taking your own car away etc. basically you are trapped.

I am sure that if the money cannot be recovered from the other insurer that their procedure is similar to what you describe because I have not heard that someone actually had to pay up.

Problem is, there are plenty of people out there who are asking if Claimfast is dodgy. Why do they ask that? Because they feel that that they cannot trut them.