Credit Hire Manager
Company: Bespoke Credit Hire Ltd
Role: Credit Hire Manager
Sector: Taxi Credit Hire / Accident Management
Experience: Senior / Highly Experienced
About Bespoke Credit Hire
Bespoke Credit Hire is a large and established accident management and taxi credit hire vehicle provider, specialising in replacement vehicles for non-fault taxi and private hire drivers.
Due to the volume and value of our credit hire claims, we are looking to recruit a highly experienced Credit Hire Manager to take a senior strategic role within the business.
This is not a traditional fee-earning or file-handling position. The successful candidate will not be expected to manage a normal caseload from start to finish. Instead, they will sit above the day-to-day handlers and litigators, reviewing claims, making strategic decisions and determining which files are suitable for litigation.
The Role
The Credit Hire Manager will have responsibility for reviewing and approving credit hire claims before litigation and providing strategic oversight on higher-value, complex and disputed cases.
A significant part of the role will involve examining files critically before proceedings are authorised. You will be expected to identify weaknesses at an early stage, determine what further evidence is required and ensure that cases being progressed to litigation are properly prepared.
You will work closely with our credit hire handlers, management team and panel solicitors.
Key Responsibilities
- Conduct detailed pre-litigation reviews of credit hire files.
- Decide whether claims should be authorised for litigation.
- Review the overall litigation prospects and commercial viability of claims.
- Carry out detailed impecuniosity reviews, including consideration of bank statements, financial disclosure and supporting evidence.
- Identify weaknesses or evidential gaps before files are released for litigation.
- Review need, period, rate, enforceability, mitigation and impecuniosity issues.
- Review intervention and basic hire rate arguments and advise on appropriate strategy.
- Consider repair, total-loss, storage, recovery and vehicle licensing issues where relevant to the credit hire claim.
- Review complex or high-value files referred by handlers for senior input.
- Provide strategic guidance to handlers on evidence that should be obtained before litigation.
- Review liability issues where they have a material impact on the commercial prospects of the credit hire claim.
- Assess Part 36 and other settlement offers and provide recommendations on acceptance, rejection or counter-offers.
- Liaise with panel solicitors regarding litigation strategy and difficult cases.
- Challenge solicitors and handlers where a file has not been properly progressed or the evidence does not support the proposed strategy.
- Review adverse trends, recurring defence arguments and litigation outcomes and use these to improve the quality of future claims.
- Assist management in developing internal litigation criteria, review procedures and credit hire strategy.
- Ensure that files referred to solicitors are litigation-ready, with the necessary evidence and explanations already identified wherever possible.
- Provide mentoring and technical guidance to credit hire handlers and junior members of the team.
The Ideal Candidate
We are looking for somebody with substantial hands-on credit hire litigation experience.
The ideal candidate will have spent several years working as an experienced Credit Hire Litigator, Senior Credit Hire Litigator, Credit Hire Team Leader or Credit Hire Manager and will have an excellent understanding of how credit hire claims are defended and litigated.
You should have strong knowledge of:
- Credit hire litigation and relevant case law.
- Impecuniosity and financial disclosure.
- Need and mitigation.
- Period disputes.
- Basic hire rate evidence and arguments.
- Intervention.
- Enforceability issues.
- Taxi and private hire credit hire claims.
- Repairable and total-loss claims.
- Storage and recovery claims.
- Part 36 offers and litigation risk.
- Evidential requirements for issuing and successfully pursuing credit hire proceedings.
Experience dealing specifically with taxi, private hire, Hackney Carriage or specialist replacement vehicle claims would be a significant advantage.
What We Are Looking For
This position would suit someone who has already spent years litigating credit hire claims and now wants to move into a more strategic and decision-making role.
We are not looking for someone simply to process files or carry a large individual caseload. We need somebody capable of looking at a claim from a litigator's perspective and asking:
If this case goes to trial, can we prove it? What are the weaknesses? What will the Defendant attack? What evidence do we need now? Is litigation commercially justified?
The successful candidate must be confident enough to make decisions, challenge poor file preparation and give clear directions to handlers and solicitors.
You will need to be commercially minded as well as technically strong. The objective is not simply to litigate more cases; it is to ensure that the right cases are litigated, the right evidence is obtained and claims are positioned as strongly as possible before proceedings commence.
Essential Experience
Applicants should ideally have:
- Several years' experience dealing specifically with credit hire litigation.
- Strong experience of litigated credit hire claims from issue through to trial.
- Detailed knowledge of impecuniosity and financial evidence.
- Experience reviewing and valuing substantial credit hire claims.
- Strong understanding of Defendant insurer and solicitor strategies.
- Experience making strategic decisions on settlement and litigation.
- Excellent attention to detail and the ability to identify problems within complex files quickly.
- The confidence to provide technical guidance to experienced handlers and litigators.
Why Join Bespoke Credit Hire?
This is an opportunity for an experienced credit hire professional to move away from carrying a conventional litigation caseload and into a senior strategic position with genuine influence over how claims are progressed.
You will play an important role in shaping litigation strategy, improving file quality and ensuring that high-value taxi credit hire claims are properly prepared before they reach our solicitors and the courts.
This role is intended for an experienced credit hire professional. Candidates without substantial credit hire litigation experience are unlikely to be suitable.
Experience:
- Credit Hire Litigation: 3 years (preferred)
Work Location: In person
