“ Most people know someone with a car hire horror story ”
representatives to help build a framework for improving the current situation.
It was clear that there are issues, and that the industry needs to improve several aspects of its business model in order to reduce the number of affected customers. Here are some of their findings:-
• Increased co-operation between consumers,
businesses and authorities to improve codes of conduct and complaint handling
• Need for better and more transparent user-friendly
information before concluding the car hire
contract and collecting the car
• Dispute settlement
mechanisms should be set up and monitored
These three actions that came out of the conference leave me primed to make an educated guess that the car rental industry will eventually become regulated by the FSA here in the UK. That’s not just for the classes of insurance they are selling over the counter to customers, but because it is in consumers’ best interest to be fully protected from the time they book a car rental to the time they drop the car off. At present we are in the
hands of the car rental operator, and when things don’t go your way this becomes a problem. I decided to set up Halo Insurance and
icarhireinsurance.com to protect consumers from these risks.
Car rental and leasing firms have warned that they will stop distributing personal accident insurance if Europe pushes through stricter regulation. At present, rental and leasing firms are exempt from FSA regulation when selling-over-the-counter insurances such as personal accident insurance, and one of my favourites, car hire excess insurance or damage waiver. The BVRLA do not consider
the latter insurance, but to me, this is clear risk transfer. Just imagine, you are a large car rental firm and you have several hundred car rental agreements in force at one time. In aggregate, self insuring all those excesses would be a no- no!
In 2009, travel firms and tour operators selling such products known as ‘Connected travel insurance’, or CTI, became regulated. Is the car rental industry next?
The new Halo products are sold online under the retail brand of
iCarhireinsurance.com and via brokers under the Halo Insurance
brand.and. See
www.haloinsurance.com
JUNE 2010 insurancepeople 13
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