Those penny-pinching clutchpurses over at Allianz have been quibbling over credit hire charges again. Insurance Times and Post Magazine both covered the news this week that Allianz has successfully contested charges relating to a £500 per day replacement vehicle provided to Sunderland striker Darren Bent via Accident Exchange. But frankly Bankstone News is b*ggered if it can make much sense of the reports on their websites.
The reports agree on some things: following damage to the Tooting-born footballist’s Mercedes CLS Coupé, he decided to settle for a measly Aston Martin DB9 as its temporary replacement. Post claim the incident happened “in February.” Seeing as it’s only mid-March now, the bill for 94 days’ hire with which Allianz were reportedly landed would certainly seem a bit rich.
Luckily, Insurance Times is on hand to clear up this apparent temporal anomaly: “The striker was involved in a road traffic accident “in February,” they clarify, when his Mercedes CLS Coupe was damaged by an Allianz policyholder.”
OK, that’s much clearer. Wonder if the policyholder was driving at the time. But hang on, Post says: “The striker, a policyholder with Allianz, was involved in a road traffic accident in February where his Mercedes CLS Coupe was damaged.”
Does that mean Bent and the damager were both coincidentally Allianz Policyholders?
Did one of these trusted insurance industry news sources accidentally garble the facts whilst attempting to create the impression of not having simply cut and pasted an Allianz press release?
Or – cue three ascending minor chords, the last extended for dramatic effect – were Mr Bent and the damager one and the same person?!
And what about the unprecedented speed with which the case was settled… on appeal?
Bankstone News has uncovered a trail of clues all pointing towards the shocking conclusion that the damage in question – whoever may have been the damager – occurred, not this February – pause – but in February 2009 – or possibly even longer ago than that!
Three clues in particular point to this conclusion:
Clue 1: When asked last year on a fan site what car he drove, Bent replied Aston Martin (also noting that he really likes Michael Jackson and thinks nuclear bombs were a bad invention).
Clue 2: his twitter name – the one he famously used to publicise his view that Daniel Levy should “stop f***ing about” over the player’s proposed transfer from Spurs to Sunderland is DB10thetruth. Now, 10 is one more than 9, ergo QED!
Oh and (Clue 3): ahead of the game as they may be, it somehow seems improbable that Post Magazine could already have been writing back in December last year about the fallout from an incident that had yet to occur. Probably the clincher, that one.
“I’d always wanted a car with the same initials as my name,” England’s third or fourth best striker has never actually said, “but really I prefer Range Rovers.”
STOP PRESS UPDATE TYPE THING:
Someone’s actually done some proper fact-finding on this since Bankstone News posted the story on Friday – and it turns out Benty did – not altogether unsurprisingly – have another vehicle, but didn’t think a 4×4 was quite the thing for driving in and out of London. Tell that to all the capital’s yummy mummies/gangstas et al. racing over speed bumps in their Chelsea tractors!
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