Credit Hire FAQ

Everything you need to know about credit hire and how CreditHire Assist works.

Credit Hire Basics

Credit hire is the provision of a replacement vehicle to an innocent party after a road traffic accident, where the hire cost is paid on credit terms. The claimant does not pay upfront - the credit hire company provides the vehicle and recovers the cost from the at-fault driver's insurer.

The Basic Hire Rate is the amount a court considers a reasonable person would have paid to hire a comparable vehicle from a mainstream supplier in their local area. Where a claimant is not impecunious, recovery of hire charges is typically limited to the BHR rather than the higher credit hire rate.

Impecuniosity in credit hire refers to a claimant's financial inability to pay for a hire vehicle on the open market. If the claimant could not have afforded to hire from a mainstream supplier without making unreasonable sacrifices, they may recover the full credit hire rate. The test was established in Lagden v O'Connor [2003] UKHL 64.

TPI stands for third-party insurer - the insurer of the at-fault driver. TPI correspondence refers to letters challenging or disputing aspects of the credit hire claim, such as rate, period of hire, need for a vehicle, or the claimant's impecuniosity.

The at-fault driver's insurer is responsible for paying reasonable hire charges incurred by the innocent party. The credit hire company provides the vehicle on credit and recovers the cost directly from the third-party insurer as part of the claimant's damages. Read more in our detailed guide.

The GTA is an industry agreement between credit hire organisations and subscribing insurers. It provides a framework for settling credit hire claims, including agreed rate caps and protocols, without the need for litigation.

About CreditHire Assist

CreditHire Assist is an AI-powered platform that helps credit hire teams analyse insurer disputes, draft legally grounded responses, deconstruct BHR evidence, assess liability, and access verified UK case law. Every legal statement is cited to a verified authority - never assumed or generated from general AI training data.

ChatGPT generates responses from general training data and can fabricate case names, invent legal citations, or present outdated law as current. CreditHire Assist is constrained to a curated knowledge base of verified UK credit hire case law. It cannot access the internet, cannot invent authority, and will refuse to generate a response if no supporting case law exists.

CreditHire Assist is designed for teams of all sizes. The standard licence includes 5 users at a fixed monthly cost. Whether you have 3 handlers or 30, the tools work the same way - giving every handler access to expert-level case law knowledge and AI-powered argument analysis.

Yes. CreditHire Assist is a decision-support tool, not a replacement for professional judgment. Every output should be reviewed by a qualified handler before it is sent.

Tools & Features

Yes. Upload any insurer BHR report and the AI will deconstruct it - identifying vehicle mismatches, locality errors, CDW challenges, provider term issues, and unsupported rate reductions. Each challenge is backed by relevant UK case law.

CreditHire Assist covers rate challenges (BHR and spot rates), period of hire, need for hire, impecuniosity arguments, mitigation, liability splits, TPI intervention correspondence, and CDW/additional product disputes. Each area is supported by 130+ verified UK case law authorities.

Describe the accident circumstances and the tool provides a structured assessment with recovery percentages, relevant case law, Highway Code rules, and the exact questions you should be asking before conceding. Learn more.

The Preemptive Letter Builder generates proactive letters to insurers before they raise arguments - establishing the legal position on rate, period, need, and impecuniosity from day one. Learn more.

Security & Data

All data is encrypted at rest and in transit. The platform includes PII redaction, role-based access controls, and full audit logging. No data is used to train AI models. See our Security page for full details.

No. Your data is never shared with third parties or used to train any AI model. The AI operates within a closed knowledge base and cannot access the internet.