Caravan insurance when with dealer for work
When dropping of my caravan at the dealers for some warranty work I was asked to sign to accept the statement ..... 'Please remove all personnal items. If this is not possible, please note your personnal items atre left at your risk. Your caravan is left with us at your own risk and is covered by your insurance for the duration.'
When I checked with my insurer they said the caravan should be covered by the dealers insurance and my insurer would not cover it. Under these circumstances I am worried about leaving it at the dealers overnight.
Do caravans dealers normally not insure customers caravans when they have the van to do work? The dealer is a large well estabalished firm and I have spoken to them several times and they are adamant that their insurnace does not cover my van.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Comments
-
Find another dealership.
1 -
It is warranty work so I need to use the dealer I bought from.
0 -
The website of your caravan manufacturer should list dealers, workshops and mobile techs authorised to carry out warranty work.
0 -
The United Kingdom is divided into three distinct legal jurisdictions: England and Wales; Northern Ireland and Scotland. In none of those jurisdictions can you sign away your legal rights. In this case those rights include being able to recover damages from a trader with whom you place your vehicle for professional work. It is the traders’ choice as to whether he has insurance to cover any damages he may have to pay for his negligence; if not he will have to pay from his own funds.
Attempting to have you sign a waiver and accept the insurance responsibility yourself is quite possibly illegal but I’m not aware of any test case or case law.
I you feel forced to use their services you can IMO sign the document with reasonable certainty that you are signing a document of no worth to the trader. However if something goes wrong and you need to make a claim it will almost certainly have to go to court. You can also be fairly certain that the court will take a very dim view of the trader trying to get you to waive your rights.
With regard to their request for you to remove your personnel items that is IMO reasonable but if you leave them in the van they should be covered by you and / or your insurance.
I hope that helps but in your position I would try to use another trader as others have said.
0 -
There may well be a misunderstanding in play here.
The dealers may be referring to loss or damage NOT caused by themselves and not as a result of their negligence, much in the same way that storage facilities put the onus on insuring loss or damage to your unit back on the owner.
I agree wholeheartedly with LLM if the dealer is trying to negate his legal responsibility and will almost certainly have Public Liability cover incorporated into his overall commercial insurance policy, covering things such as Fire, Theft and Employers Liability etc.etc. It doesn't matter what he says in any contract that he gets you to sign. If he or his staff could be held legally liable for loss of or damage to your unit then his Public Liability insurance will provide cover.
When we leave our caravan at the workshop we are always asked to leave a hitch lock. If the workshop do not attach said Hitchcock and my unit is stolen then I'll be suing them for negligence.
Having said all of that it is quite common or used to be when I was involved in these matters for Motor Traders, Caravan Dealers and anyone else who had customers vehicles or units in their possession to include an item on their own Fire and Theft schedules to include "Customers Vehicles in their custody or control". Maybe these sort of common courtesy add ons are being Deleted User to save on costs. Long time since I was involved.
Our caravan insurance does in fact cover us when the caravan is left in any workshop premises providing one security device already notified to them is attached.
0 -
Thanks , very useful thoughts.
0 -
I once had to deal with Fire damage to several cars on the forecourt of a motor trader, some of the cars being customers cars. It was caused by a Third Party losing control of his car and crashing into one of the cars on the forecourt setting fire to both cars and some minor damage occuring to other adjacent vehicles.
Not the fault of the motor trader. All dealt with amicably in the end especially as his own staff put out the fires quickly themselves.
Had a fire once caused by an errant firework. Stuff happens.
0 -
It is difficult (and risky) to offer views on the effect of a contract if you haven't seen it however it is not completely true to say "that you cannot sign away your legal rights" albeit some rights for example regarding personal injury cannot be signed away. LLM seems to imply that a dealer can be liable without negligence. LLM may be just that (although there is no full stop) but at best he has oversimplified things. Furthermore Insurance stands behind you not in front of you, in other words the Dealer may have cover but they wont pay the dealer is not legally liable.
My motorhome insurance requires the insurers to be informed if the vehicle is away from its normal storage location for more than 48 hours and that includes leaving it with a repairer. I recently left the vehicle for bodywork. The insurers confirmed that the vehicle WAS covered but NOT the contents. Obviously if damage to the vehicle does occur whilst in the dealers possession the circumstances may point to dealer liability but not automatically. Personally I would remove as far as practicable all personal possessions especially valuables such as a TV. A insurance claim will always cost you money excess plus loadings.
Going to court is expensive and therefore largely impracticable unless big sums are involved so prevention is the best strategy.
When my car is serviced I always just delete the bit on the form limiting the dealers liability and the dealer has so far always accepted it even though he may think I am an eccentric or even a lunatic.
0
