Credit hire scandal affects RTA victims

Posted 22/02/2012

Date: 21 February 2012

If you need to hire a vehicle following a road traffic accident whilst your own vehicle is repaired or replaced, the hire costs can be significant. The law states that an insurer only needs to reimburse “reasonable” car hire charges. In some circumstances they are entitled to rely on “spot hire” rates, ie supposedly objective evidence of how much it reasonably costs to hire a like for like vehicle on a daily/weekly basis. The insurance world can save millions of pounds annually by relying on spot hire rates and suggesting that the amount paid by an innocent driver for car hire is excessive.Unfortunately, it now seems that some insurance companies have relied on fraudulently compiled data which suggested spot hire rates should be lower than the reality. In a case which has recently been heard at the High Court Lord Justice Moses stated himself to be “flabbergasted” by claims that 30,000 crash compensation cases have been infected by “industrial scale perjury”. Accusations of systematic fraud have been made against seven former workers at Auto Focus Limited, now in liquidation, whose job it was to investigate, on behalf of insurance companies, typical car hire rates in areas where crashes occurred. Lord Justice Moses continued by stating “if proved, it is difficult to think of a more serious conspiracy. What we are talking about is industrial scale perjury… the victims are the Courts, the administration of Justice, the public, you and me”. Criminal Prosecutions are being considered by the Attorney General.This case suggests that thousands of entirely innocent victims of road traffic accidents have been left financially out of pocket as a result of alleged dubious and fraudulent activity by companies instructed by a number of insurers. It will be interesting to see whether the press is as quick to publicise this issue as they are to climb on the “compensation culture” bandwagon.