UKC

I hired a car in April at Athens airport and took out excess insurance through Worldwide insure. Unfortunately I damaged the car and had to pay the cost of repair on returning the vehicle. I then tried to claim this back, Worldwide insure now use Claim ez to handle their claims. I have provided Claim ez with all the documentation, contract, details of work needed etc, but claim ez are refusing to process the claim until they get a receipt of the work done, which the car hire company do not provide/ do not have. The cost of the repair was £500. I'm adding this post as I know a few folk recommend Worldwide insure, but after this experience I can not recommend them. But I'm also wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and how/ what they did to get their claim processed?

Did you hire the car before travelling? If so was it direct with a car rental company eg Avis, Hertz, Europecar or through an agent eg AutoEurope, Holiday Autos?

I had a very similar situation in 2016 - I was insured through www.carhireexcess.com, who actually turned out to be Travel Claims Services ltd.  I paid for the damage on my credit card and asked for an invoice to be emailed, but it never arrived.

After some wrangling, TCS paid up.  I gave them the credit card slip I was given at the airport, my original hire agreement, my bank statements showing the charge, all the correspondance with the hire firm... eventually they gave in but it did take some time.

It was through holiday autos

Claims ez have all that  Jamie, but keep blaming the car hire company

I have used Questor for some years now, with an annual worldwide cover. I had to make a claim when in Australia recently (a grass mower flung out a stone and it flew unerringly to our front headlight). I couldn't fault their treatment of us and settlement through their chosen claims handling company. Such events are great for customer loyalty.

I'd ring them and ask for their support. Not sure about Hol Autos but AutoEurope have always been most helpful when the end supplier has tried something on, which is quite often!

Thanks Rog. Mine is due for renewal before next trip abroad so will look at Questor.

I've had this sort of aggro before. I got charged for a replacement windscreen with a miniscule chip in it. ( Goldcar, never again).When I was getting nowhere I just opened a disputed payment claim with my credit card company who refunded me. I presume they just  take the loss as it is too much trouble to take it up with the hire car company. So my experience was that so long as you can provide some evidence that you have tried to sort it out, your credit card company should come to your rescue. 

Good to be reminded of the credit card company's liability. Thanks. Didn't need reminding about Goldcar though!!!

Incidentally, there was a recent report on car hire by Which? (Consumers' Assoc). Briefly, best and worst as follows:

Cicar & Auto Reisen out on their own (but only available in the Canaries!)

Enterprise, Alamo and Centauro all good.

Worst: Goldcar, Interrent out on their own

Europcar and Firefly next worst. 

Interestingly (well maybe...) Europcar have owned Goldcar since mid 2017.

Hertz own Firefly, Dollar and Thrifty.

Unfortunately nikoid, I have tried this route and the credit card company will not put my claim into dispute. I'm not sure who is having a laugh at my expense here, the car hire company or the insurance folk.

Disappointedly and surprisingly the OP does not seem to have had the same good service from his credit card provider, see his latest response.

With their 30% interest charges you'd have thought they could swallow more of this nonsense!

Insurance4carhire have paid out twice for me with minimal fuss. I did have to provide a few pictures of the bill at the end but that was about it. I recently rented from interent and on arrival at the airport it turned out to be goldcar. They were f**king people sideways at the counter. I have never seen anything like it. They had a young Swedish couple in tears. I feel sorry for their staff frankly as clearly they are pushed to treat people like this. I couldn't think of a worse place to work. Not a single person in a huge queue did not leave that office absolutely fuming. 

Europcar are f**king crooks.  Avoid like the plague.  So no surprise at all that they are involved with Goldcar!

My opinion of Europcar has improved recently due to a good experience in Dubai; still not sure why i went with them ( actually i do, it was a special offer....), as the only 2 other times I've used them (barcelona and newcastle), they have been rubbish. Mind you, this might just be a local thing, as I have never had anything less than excellent service from hire car companies in Dubai, even cheap "local" ones rather than multinationals.

Well, it seems to be a different scenario.  In your case, it sounds like there was dispute over whether the damage really existed at all (or at least whether it was caused by you) and presumably you did not willingly pay the excess but had it taken from a pre-cleared deposit?  In this case yes, you have protection under Sec 75. 

But if the OP willingly paid the excess because they knew they'd caused the damage (as happened to me) then there is no protection under Sec 75 - you know that you owe this money, and happen to have chosen to pay it with a credit card.  About the only hope the OP has in this scenario is to argue to the credit card provider that provision of the invoice was a vital part of the agreement and it hasn't been delivered.

edit - I mean the only hope of getting the card provider to refund the money.  There's a much better chance of getting the hire company to supply some sort of invoice, or of persuading the excess insurance company to pay up even with out it, and those are where I'd focus my effort.

Yes that is exactly the situation, the payment was taken without my consent, so yes I can see now the OP is in a different (and unfortunately trickier) scenario.

Also have an annual policy with Questor - cost about £26 for 2 drivers (~£42 with 25% code from MoneySavingExpert and via TopCashBack for another 15%).

Used them once before, but not yet had to claim.

Try and rent through Enterprise, but then my sister works through them. Currently in a Europcar vehicle - already had rear tyre changed, as delivered with a puncture fitted!

One of the biggest scams is child seat hire - they wanted €270 for 2 seats for 2 weeks! Suffice to say I went independent for €73.

Interesting Rog. Of course no surprise re Goldcar, now owned by Europcar, but until my last experience I'd been happy with Interrent in a few locations. Last time however I happily booked Interrent only to find when I got to the destination airport that the Interrent desk was within the dreaded Goldcar desk! Too late I discovered Interrent is also now part of the Europcar. All 3 will be studiously avoided from now on.

Terrible experience with Goldcar, but have found Europcar fine in the past, so if they've got tied up with Goldcar it's a retrograde step on their part.

Always found Avis good. Also Enterprise good.

Insurance4car hire have been brilliant - have had to claim on them twice. Prompt and seamless payment in full each time.

That was, in every respect, my experience since Europcar, who already owned Interrent, acquired Goldcar about a year ago (?). I was at Alicante that time. Where were you? Last time I'll have anything to do with Europcar or it's cheaper trade names.

I use Enterprise as much as I can, I registered for an account and now I get points towards free rentals or upgrades, 5% off all rentals, and they seem to treat you way better when you’re an account holder because they assume you’ve got expectations. 

I think it’s a given to avoid Goldcar and Firefly nowadays. 

Sardinia. I always just stick to Hertz and pay a bit extra but they were not in this airport. I already knew goldcar were bad and usually I'd rather walk a mile across broken glass than have anything to do with them. 

They had this one little trick where they had allowed customers to book cars on their debit card and when they turned up with it they said because it's not a credit card you can only have the car if buy our premium insurance as we cannot take a deposit on a debit card. I mean people should know this but still. The insurance was over £300 for a week. And it was either pay it or don't get the car but we won't refund what you have already paid. Plus some prepaid fuel add pm on top. I'd have cut my losses if was me and walked out. This was why the Swedish couple were crying. They couldn't pay it. 

I use Insurance4carhire. Annual policy. Used it three times. No problems, including an £1100 claim.

I,ve been going to Spain twice a year for some time now and have used Firefly at least a dozen times with absolutely no problems. 

I also have annual cdw insurance but as I am over 70 and require unlimited mileage on my hire cars it was pointed out to me that the Firefly cdw insurance included an age penalty and unlimited mileage and no hefty excess deposits and actually worked out cheaper than paying for these extras and my own cdw insurance. So don,t automatically discount the companies own insurance.