Please bear with me this could be a long one . My daughter has been given a courtesy car via her insurance company while her car which was hit outside our house in the middle of the night is being mended _nfortunately the courtesy car was damaged while she was stationary by another driver ( road rage) the garage who issued the courtesy car are refusing to go through the insurance and say she must pay the excess amount of 350 and it is up to her to prosecute the other driver if she wants her money back . Her insurance company are nt interested as she was driving on the garages insurance and won't help. The garage also has her car atm so. She is worried they won't return her car if she doesn't pay now.   Any ideas ?

Generally you have to pay the excess and claim it back if you can. What a shame for your daughter, I take it she doesn't have legal cover? Usually it's an optional extra (maybe around £10) but it's really good in this sort of scenario.

Just as an aside it's always good to read the small print with coutesy cars/ hire cars. I was going to hire a car in Germany earlier this year till I noticed that every hire company had around 1000E excess, for accidental damage and vandalism too... so if I left the car in a car park and it was damaged I'd be liable for 1000 euros.. taxis were much cheaper.

Now there's a point about legal cover will check. I must say in the luckily few accidents I have had the ins company did it all I paid nothing up front

> I must say in the luckily few accidents I have had the ins company did it all I paid nothing up front

I've never had an accident myself but do carefully check hire car arrangements as several colleagues have been caught in similar situations as your daughter :-(

My car was hit and very nearly written off when it was parked up whilst I was walking the dogs. Luckily for me the owner of the other car was very honest and left his details on my windscreen.

I had to pay the excess on my car insurance but I had legal cover and could claim the excess back. I was also told I could claim back any other expenses that had left me out of pocket. At the time I was offered a hire car through my insurance but turned it down as I wasn't allowed to have the dogs in it and I use my car all the time for going to training, travelling to shows and for driving to the places where I walk the dogs. The legal cover company informed me- but a month later -  that I could have privatelyhired a van and they would have recovered the cost from the other party's insurance and the hire cost and insurance cover for the van would have all been recoverable from his insurance.

If your daughter has legal cover it is very well worth her while to check with them. If she is covered she will have to pay the excess and then the legal firm will set in motion the actions needed to recover it from the other driver's insurance as long as your daughter is not liable for the accident that damaged the hire vehicle.]

Brilliant Harley thats given me an idea. Am still trying to get hold of her and the policy document to read it as they both appear to be in different places neither of which seems to be at home grr  
Fingers crossed I do find there is legal cover

Something I've not thought of before now - if you have legal cover through your car insurance, does it only cover you for accidents while driving under that insurance ?? The OP's daughter was driving the courtesy car under their insurance, so is she covered ?? (hopefully so :) )

Not sure Daisy - although it could be argued that she wouldn't have been driving the courtesy car if not for the accident so the expense of the second excess was incurred due to the original accident.