A relative was chatting with a someone at work who had their car written off (not at fault) around 4 years ago. It was complicated enough as it was an uninsured driver but was further complicated as the culprit was in this country illegally, and is no longer here
He’s still driving a hire car almost 4 years on. His car wasn’t a cheap car but not a supercar - it’s a sporty-spec saloon worth around £90k new. He gets a new hire car every 3 months - he’s had S classes, BMW 5 series estates, a Tesla model S, that sort of thing
We all know that insurance companies claim a lot of money for giving people hire cars - it’s not uncommon for a day’s rental to be what you could lease the car for a month… he’s said the claim is currently at £450,000
I know they have to lend out an equivalent car to what you’ve lost and remember someone I know getting a Fiesta which was billed at around £140 a day so can well believe a posh saloon being £3-400 a day
The victim / claimant has lost all faith now, and just happily accepts a nice new car every 3 months when it turns up. Most recently the owner of the hire company, apparently, delivered the car himself, as he wanted to meet and thank him!
Why do they do this? It seems like a bit of a gambling addiction - they keep pumping money in to fighting this hoping they won’t have to pay out for the car … but they could’ve paid for it 5 times already. Would it not be better to just cut their losses?
Could the amount of the settlement come back to bite him, would it "look bad" having a half-million pound claim on your history? I'd imagine, seeing as this was the insurers' choice and not his, it should be, at worst, equally severe to a £90,000 claim of writing off the car?
Looking forward to any comments