A hire that keeps getting longer
An insurer's claims handler emails to authorise a replacement car for five days while a policyholder's car is repaired. The bodyshop is waiting for parts. On day five the policyholder rings to say the repair is not finished. The branch extends the hire, and someone emails the handler for an extension. There is no reply. The hire runs to day twelve.
The invoice goes in for twelve days. It comes back part-paid for five, with a note that the extension was not authorised. Now the branch is digging through emails to prove otherwise.
Why replacement hire billing is so fiddly
Retail hires are paid by the person driving. Replacement hires are paid by someone else, under their own rules, and the person driving is rarely the one who can authorise anything.
- Each insurer, broker or accident management firm has its own authorisation process and reference format.
- Authorisations and extensions arrive by email, portal and phone, and are stored wherever the person handling them keeps things.
- The vehicle group authorised may differ from the one supplied if the right group was not available.
- Extensions depend on the repair, which is controlled by the bodyshop, not the payer or the hirer.
- Invoices need the payer's reference, claim number and authorised days, exactly.
Everything needed to bill correctly exists somewhere. It is just spread across inboxes and notes.
Short payments and unpaid days
Short payments and rejected invoices, which take weeks to resolve. Days supplied without authorisation that are never recovered. Cash tied up in unpaid replacement hire invoices. And staff time spent chasing handlers, which grows with every payer you add.
The replacement hire tracker we build
- Each replacement hire has a record with the payer, their reference and claim number, the authorised vehicle group and the authorised days.
- Authorisation emails are read as they arrive and matched to the hire by reference, with the authorised dates extracted for a person to confirm.
- A few days before an authorised period ends, the tracker checks with the bodyshop on repair progress, where they share it, and prompts staff to request an extension from the payer with the repair update attached.
- Extensions are recorded against the hire when they arrive. Days supplied beyond authorisation are highlighted every day until resolved.
- Invoices are produced in each payer's required format, with references, authorised days, the group supplied and any extension evidence attached.
- Short payments are matched back to the invoice with the reason given, so they can be disputed with the evidence or written off with a record of why.
| Stage | Common problem | What the tracker does |
|---|---|---|
| Authorisation | Lost in someone's inbox | Read, matched and recorded against the hire |
| End of authorised period | Extension not requested in time | Prompts with repair update attached |
| Invoice | Wrong reference or days | Built from the recorded authorisations |
| Payment | Short paid without explanation | Reconciled with the reason |
Bodyshops and accident management firms
Where the bodyshop or accident management firm is the one directing hires, they can have a simple portal to request vehicles, see what is on hire under their references and confirm repair completion dates. That turns the phone calls about when the car can come back into a date on a screen. What they can see is limited to their own hires.
Invoices that match what was agreed
Staff see every replacement hire with its authorised end date, and extensions are requested before the period runs out, not after. Invoices go out with the evidence attached, so fewer are rejected. When one is short paid, the reason is recorded and the next decision is quick.
Signs this is your situation
- Replacement hire invoices are regularly short paid or rejected.
- Authorisations and extensions live in personal inboxes.
- Hires run past their authorised period without anyone noticing.
- Each payer's invoice format is handled by hand.
- You have a long list of unpaid replacement hire invoices.