Home | Automotive | Insurance

Motor Insurance Policy Exclusion Clauses - Loss of Use

Here we examine the "loss of use" exclusion clause in your motor insurance policy.It specifies what alternative transport your insurance company will give you if your own car is off the road because of accident or theft. In the majority of cases the answer is nothing !!

Certain insurers have a team of appointed repair shops who will give you a courtesy car if one happens to be available. A few insurers have a hire car scheme added to their policy whereby they will provide a vehicle for you from their chosen hire car company. However, most insurance companies do not offer either of these options.

Most insurers offer a hire car option to their comprehensive policies. The option is far from cheap and the policy cover is quite limited. You should decide if you feel it essential that you buy it. It is far from an essential extra for everybody. Answer these questions:

If my vehicle was off the road would I still be able to :
- get to work (by train, walk, bus, cycle)?
- get the children/grandchildren to school?
- go shopping
- go on holiday?
- pursue my sports, hobbies, social interests etc?

If you could cope without a vehicle for a while, you do not need to buy this additional cover. If you're sure that you can't then you should pay the additional premiums.

Remember, if an accident is your fault or your car is stolen, you won't be able to recover any hire car costs from another person. You won't be able to go and see a 'credit hire' company. You can't rely upon the prospect of a replacement car from the garage. So this extra cover becomes valuable to you.

Equally, if you do not wish to use the recommended repairer of your insurance company, or your car is written off, your hire car additional cover will come to the rescue. Let us look at what you should hope to see in a typical policy.

You can only hire a car if yours is off the road for at least 2 days, and the maximum hire period is 14 days. If the hire car is required for longer than this you will have to pay the additional cost to the car hire firm. There's been many a disagreement between insurer, repairer and car owner when repairs have overrun because of non-availability of parts and nobody wants to pay the additional hire car costs.

You can't have a hire car for a windscreen or glass only claim.

There's usually a maximum distance that the hire company will deliver a rental car so if you live away from the major cities and the hire company is a fair distance away from you, expect an additional charge if you require them to deliver it to you. Can you get to their local branch yourself?

Your own car insurance policy will cover the hire car as if it were your own car. That helps your insurer to keep down the price of the hire car cover but if you are involved in an accident whilst using the rental car, the claim will be on your policy.

The rental car can only be claimed from the date your car goes in to be repaired if it is still legal and safe to drive your car. If your car is not roadworthy you can hire the car from the day of the accident.

Policies will very likely define a maximum period of hire, such as 14 days. If your vehicle is restored prior to that date, you have to return the hire car as soon as your vehicle is returned.

The rental car supplied will almost certainly be a small, manual gearbox vehicle no more than a couple of years old. If you require a larger model you might have to pay extra. If you require an automatic efforts will be made to find one for you within the vehicle groups specified in the policy. The hire car will usually come supplied with a tank full of fuel. You must return it with a full tank of fuel. If you don't you will be charged by the hire company for a fill up. And they charge a very high price per litre!

Some hire companies will want to collect your credit card number, if you have one, guarding against the possibility of needing to top up the fuel in your car or bumping it whilst out and about.

Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles

This article explaining the loss of use clause of a motor insurance policy was written by Terry Cod. He has several years of experience working in the claims office of a number of UK insurance companies. His website www.instant-online-insurance.co.uk offers Holiday insurance for people aged over 65.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entiretly, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE VISIBLE links (without "nofollow" tags).