Insurance law firm HF has saved four insurer clients a huge amount of money while holding credit hire companies to account.
The potential costs saved, calculated after defeating high-value credit hire claims that would have forced payouts from Admiral, Hastings Direct, KGM Underwriting Services and LV= General Insurance had they been successful, reached around £650,000.
HF also won cost orders worth £100,000 from credit hire companies in litigation over the claims.
In one case, a claimant dropped his £252,000 claim for credit hire and other losses following an investigation carried out by Admiral Insurance and HF.
This resulted 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.
Another case saw KGM Underwriting Services and HF successfully defend a credit hire claim for more than £100,000 and secured £15,000 in costs from the credit hire company that hired the vehicle to a fraudster, having demonstrated its 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.
The HF intelligence team proved 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.
Commenting on the successes, Graeme Mulvoy, a 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.”
He continued: “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.”