Defended recovery agent work
Recovery agents, in particular credit repairers, represent a major challenge for insurers.
From our experience, repair costs can often be significantly inflated. Added to that, are the “tacked on” costs often associated with such claims.
While Victoria and New South Wales have historically seen the most activity in this regard, in recent times, the prevalence of these claims has increased in others States and jurisdictions.
Motor Vehicle Recovery & Defence
Commercial & Residential Property
Counter Fraud & Indemnity
Heavy Vehicle, Plant & Equipment
Marine Claims
Liability Defence
Training & Claims Strategy
Ligeti Partners has been at the forefront of defending these claims for decades. We have handled literally thousands of such claims for insurers and self-insureds. In broad terms, our goals are twofold:
To minimise our client’s exposure on individual claims. We achieve this through being extremely proactive and working closely with our clients to develop effective litigation and resolution strategies. In many cases, our client may be exposed to significant legal costs in these claims, as their insureds will typically be ‘at fault’. It is therefore imperative that steps be implemented early in the matter to enable a third party’s claim to be quickly assessed, and a decision then made on how to proceed (whether it be through a settlement strategy, or proceeding to trial). Our unmatched experience makes us uniquely able to achieve this.
Developing and implementing strategies in defending relevant claims that maximise our client’s ability to respond to future claims brought by recovery agents. We work with our clients to build frameworks and claims protocols to respond to recovery agents. Quite often, recovery agents will attempt to have insurers “fit in” to their processes, by dictating terms on how and when to respond to demands, making offers and vehicle inspections. By implementing counterresponses that allow you to assess claims on your terms, having had all requisite information and documents supplied, your prospects of successfully disputing a claim are enhanced. From our experience, such strategies also serve to dissuade recovery agents from being as aggressive on future claims.
Like most motor claims, the quantum involved in these matters is often small in comparison to claims made in relation to other insurance products. However, we understand the cumulative exposure to these claims is substantial. Our significant experience in handling these claims places us in a unique position to respond on behalf of our clients. Over our many years, this has resulted in us achieving substantial savings for our clients in the amounts paid by them in responding to recovery agent demands.
Credit Hire
In the last decade, the Australian credit hire industry has experienced substantial growth. Whilst initially concentrated in New South Wales, credit hire providers are now prominent in all States.
In many respects, we have been the market leaders in challenging credit hire claims. The sharp rise in these claims led to us establishing our Credit Hire Team several years ago.
Whilst the claims are often for relatively small amounts, the law in this area can be complex, and has frequently changed in recent years. Fortunately, the changes in the law have, in the main, favoured insurers.
Ligeti Partners has been involved in many of the leading cases in this area. We have helped reshape the landscape and achieve positive changes in the approaches taken by the Courts in considering these claims.
For example, at one point many Courts consistently held that parties were entitled to recover a “spot” rate or daily rate of hire. Several years ago, we adopted a strategy to argue that, in certain cases, weekly rates (rather than daily rates) should apply. Typically, such rates are much cheaper than daily rates, often by as much as 30%. Ultimately, we were successful in having this argument accepted in numerous matters before the Court, and it is now commonly accepted in many jurisdictions.
We have the knowledge and drive to assist our clients meeting the challenges posed by the credit hire industry.
Our experience and expertise will bring real and effective results to your portfolio of these claims.
Other motor property disputes
We have vast experience in all manner of motor property disputes. This ranges from basic liability and quantum disputes, to the more complex matters such as those involving complex and large loss claims, inevitable accident, fuel contamination, consumer law claims and claims involving impacts with livestock and buildings.
We have the Team to accurately advise on all of these issues, and our experience allows us to implement tactics in all jurisdictions to maximise your recovery/savings whilst minimising your legal spend.
Our Motor Property Team Leaders
James Mulcahy
Virginia Waters
Spencer Pascal
Doran Yacobi
Isabelle Hayes
Paul Singam
