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TfL-licensed London private hire
Replacement PCO Car After a Non-Fault Accident in London
If you drive on a PCO licence and someone else caused the crash, a standard courtesy car leaves you unable to earn. We arrange licensed, plated like-for-like replacement private hire vehicles so you can keep working while your car is repaired or assessed, subject to liability and eligibility.
- Licensed plated replacement
- Hire & reward literate
- Loss of earnings recovered
- ULEZ / ZEC screened
24/7
UK response
Recovery dispatch and live claim handlers, 365 days a year.
Response
<60m
First contact SLA
Cost
£0
Upfront to driver
Reviewed: Written & reviewed by: CityGrip Editorial Team (City Grip Ltd)Applies to: TfL-licensed private hire drivers in London
Can I use a courtesy car for Uber or Bolt work after an accident?
No. An ordinary courtesy car from the third-party insurer will not carry a Transport for London private hire vehicle licence or the front and rear licence discs, and it is normally insured for social, domestic and pleasure use only, not hire and reward. Working in it would put your PCO licence, your insurance and your platform account at risk. As a non-fault driver you can instead ask for a like-for-like plated replacement: a licensed PHV you can legally work in. Liability and eligibility always apply, so the position is confirmed case by case.
Key points
- All licensed London PHVs must display their TfL vehicle licence discs, front and rear, unless TfL has granted a specific exemption
- PHVs licensed for the first time on or after 1 January 2023 must be Zero Emission Capable and meet Euro 6 if they have a combustion engine
- ZEC Route 1: no more than 50g/km CO2 with at least 10 miles zero emission range. Route 2: no more than 75g/km CO2 with at least 20 miles
- Previously licensed PHVs are exempt from ZEC but face a 10 year age limit when re-licensed
- ULEZ covers every London borough, 24 hours a day except Christmas Day, at £12.50 a day for non-compliant cars and vans
- PHV driver licences granted on or after 1 July 2024 require notification to TfL within 48 hours of any arrest and release, charge, caution, conviction, DVLA points or fixed penalty notice
- Hire and reward insurance documents must be produced at TfL vehicle inspection, along with an MOT certificate issued within the last 14 days
- Licensed private hire vehicles run on a six month MOT cycle, and platforms commonly reject certificates once six months have passed since issue
Why can't I use an ordinary courtesy car for PCO work?
London private hire runs on three separate licences, not one. You hold a private hire driver licence (the licence most drivers still call the PCO licence), you work through a licensed private hire operator, and the vehicle itself must hold its own private hire vehicle licence issued by Transport for London. That vehicle licence is attached to one specific car and identified by registration. It does not travel with you. When a courtesy car arrives from a bodyshop or the third-party insurer's hire supplier, it is an unlicensed private car as far as London private hire law is concerned. It has no TfL vehicle licence, and it will not carry the vehicle licence discs that every licensed PHV in London must display, front and rear, unless TfL has granted a specific written exemption.
The insurance side is just as decisive and is where drivers get hurt most often. A standard courtesy car is normally insured for social, domestic and pleasure use, sometimes with commuting. It is not insured for hire and reward, which is the cover you need the moment you carry a fare-paying passenger, and in practice from the moment you are logged in and available for trips. Using a vehicle on a road without a policy that covers the actual use is an offence under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, and it is treated as an absolute offence: nobody has to prove you meant to do it. A conviction typically carries an IN10 endorsement with six to eight penalty points or discretionary disqualification.
Then there is the platform layer, which many drivers discover only after they have wasted a week. Uber, Bolt and the other operators do not simply let you drive whatever car you happen to be sitting in. The vehicle registration, make and model on your account must match the car you are working in, and the platform holds copies of that vehicle's PHV licence, hire and reward insurance certificate, MOT and V5C. Change the car and you have to add the new vehicle to your account and get its documents reviewed and approved. A courtesy car will never pass that review, because the single most important document, the TfL private hire vehicle licence, does not exist for it.
What does a compliant replacement PCO car actually need?
Start with the vehicle licence. The replacement must hold a current TfL private hire vehicle licence in force for the whole period you intend to work in it, and it must display its licence discs in the correct positions. That is the non-negotiable foundation, and it is exactly what an ordinary hire car lacks. When we source a replacement for a PCO driver we are not looking for a car of similar size and value in the abstract, we are looking for a car that is already plated and already legal to take bookings in. A car that is merely the same model as yours but unplated is worth nothing to a working driver, however generously it is described in a letter.
Second, insurance that matches the work. Hire and reward cover must be in place for you, on that vehicle, for the hire period. TfL requires hire and reward insurance documents to be produced at vehicle inspection, and your operator and platform will require a current certificate on file. Third, roadworthiness paperwork the platforms will accept. Licensed private hire vehicles in London are on a six-monthly MOT cycle, and platforms routinely reject an MOT certificate once six months have passed since issue, so a replacement that arrives with a stale certificate will stall your account approval even though the car is plated and insured.
Fourth, platform acceptance. Adding a vehicle to your driver account is a document upload and review process, not an instant switch, and the review takes time. Build that into your expectations rather than assuming you will be earning the same afternoon the car is delivered. Finally, keep your own licensing position clean while all of this is happening. If your private hire driver licence was granted on or after 1 July 2024 it carries a condition requiring you to notify TfL within 48 hours of any arrest and release, charge, caution, conviction, DVLA penalty points or fixed penalty notice. An accident that results in any of those triggers that clock, whoever was at fault.
PCO DRIVERS
03
Section 3 of the walkthrough.
How do TfL's Zero Emission Capable rules affect a replacement car?
Since 1 January 2023, every private hire vehicle licensed for the first time in London has had to be Zero Emission Capable, and any vehicle with an internal combustion engine must also meet the Euro 6 standard. TfL sets two routes to compliance. Route 1 requires the vehicle to emit no more than 50g/km of CO2 and to be capable of running with zero exhaust emissions for a minimum range of 10 miles. Route 2 requires no more than 75g/km of CO2 with a minimum zero emission range of 20 miles. In practice that means a plug-in hybrid or a fully electric car, which is why the newly plated London PHV fleet looks the way it does.
Vehicles that already held a private hire vehicle licence before that date are not required to become ZEC, but they are not exempt from everything: a previously licensed PHV faces a 10 year age restriction when it is re-licensed. The combined effect matters when you are hunting for a replacement in a hurry. The pool of legally available plated cars is finite, it skews towards hybrids and electric vehicles, and older non-ZEC cars are progressively ageing out of the fleet. A supplier who tells you they can put you in any car off the forecourt has not understood the constraint you are working under.
Separately from licensing, the Ultra Low Emission Zone covers every London borough, operating 24 hours a day, every day except Christmas Day, with a £12.50 daily charge for non-compliant cars and vans. A PCO driver working London full time is inside the zone all day, so a non-compliant substitute vehicle would cost you a daily charge on top of everything else. There is also a practical dimension nobody mentions in the paperwork: if you are moved from a familiar hybrid into an unfamiliar electric car, plan your charging around your shift pattern for the first few days rather than discovering the problem mid-airport run.
What is credit hire and how does the reasonable need test apply?
Credit hire is the arrangement that lets a non-fault driver take a replacement vehicle now and have the cost pursued from the at-fault party's insurer, rather than paying rental charges out of pocket and hoping to be reimbursed months later. For a PCO driver with a week of bookings already gone, that timing is the whole point. The hire is provided under an agreement between you and the hire provider, the charges are recorded, and the claim for those charges is then presented as part of your loss. It is not free money and it is not a loophole: it is a way of putting you back in the position you would have been in if the other driver had not hit you.
English law does not hand out replacement vehicles automatically. Two tests decide what is recoverable. The first is reasonable need: did you genuinely need a replacement vehicle at all, and did you need this class of vehicle? For a PCO driver the answer to the second half is usually straightforward to evidence, because an unplated car cannot lawfully be used for the work that produces your income. That is why we ask for your PCO driver licence, the vehicle licence details for your own car, your operator or platform statements and your rental agreement if you rent. Evidence turns a plausible assertion into a documented need.
The second test is mitigation, the duty to keep your loss reasonable. Courts have long distinguished the pure cost of hiring a car from the extra services bundled into a credit hire package, and a defendant insurer is generally only expected to pay the basic or spot market rate for the vehicle, not the additional benefits of credit. Where a claimant genuinely could not have afforded to hire on the open market, that impecuniosity can be relevant to the rate recovered, but it still has to be evidenced rather than asserted. Nobody can promise you a guaranteed outcome on hire charges. What we can do is document the need properly, keep the period tight and give the paperwork the best chance of standing up.
What should I do if the insurer offers me a car I can't work in?
Do not simply say yes, and do not simply put the phone down either. Both extremes cause problems. If you accept an unsuitable car and quietly work in it anyway, you are exposed on insurance and on your PCO licence, and no accident management company can protect you from that. If you flatly refuse a reasonable offer without explaining why, the at-fault insurer will later argue that you failed to mitigate your loss and that any hire charges after the date of their offer should not be paid. The right response sits between the two: respond promptly and in writing, and put the reason on record.
The wording that works is specific rather than emotional. Confirm that you are a licensed London private hire driver, that your own vehicle held a TfL private hire vehicle licence, and that the vehicle offered has no TfL vehicle licence, no licence discs and no hire and reward insurance, so it cannot lawfully be used for the work from which you earn. Ask them directly whether they are able to supply a plated, hire and reward insured private hire vehicle instead. If they genuinely can, that may well be a reasonable offer and taking it can be the sensible course. The test is not who supplies the car, it is whether the car meets the need.
Keep every date and every document, because the timeline is what the argument turns on months later. Note when the offer was made, what exactly was offered, what you said in reply and when. Save emails and letters rather than relying on memory of phone calls, and be careful with unsolicited calls from the other side's insurer offering to sort everything out quickly. That approach can leave you without a suitable vehicle and without any record of why. If you were hurt in the collision, keep that separate: we do not deal with personal injury in-house, and any injury enquiry is only referred to an authorised legal partner with your separate written consent.
06PCO DRIVERSKey takeaway
How long will I have the replacement car?
The honest answer is that the hire period runs for as long as you reasonably need it, and that length is driven by the mechanics of your specific claim rather than by any standard allowance. We do not publish an average number of days, because a genuine average would depend on repair complexity, parts supply and how quickly liability is resolved, and quoting a figure we have not measured would mislead you. What we can describe precisely is what the period is measured from and to. Broadly it runs from the point your own vehicle became unusable to the point it is repaired and back on the road, or, if it is written off, for a reasonable time around settlement so you can replace it.
Several things stretch that period, and knowing them lets you push on the right lever. An engineer inspection has to be arranged and reported before repairs are authorised. Parts for hybrid and electric vehicles, and for high specification trim levels, are not always on a shelf. If liability is disputed, or the other driver's insurer is slow to respond, everything downstream waits. And if your car is a total loss, you are not just buying a car: you are buying a car that can be plated, then getting it through TfL licensing and then getting it approved on your platform account. That licensing tail is real and it is often underestimated.
Other things shorten it, and most of them are within your control. Report the accident and get your documents in on day one rather than day ten. Provide your PCO driver licence, vehicle licence details, V5C, MOT, insurance certificate and platform or operator earnings evidence in one go. Respond quickly to the engineer and to any request from the third-party insurer. If your car is written off, engage with the valuation early instead of leaving it and letting hire run on, because an unnecessarily long hire period is exactly what a defendant insurer will attack. Keeping the period tight protects the claim, and protects you.
What if I rent or rent-to-buy my PCO car?
A large share of London PCO drivers do not own the car they work in. They rent it weekly from a PCO hire company, or they are part way through a rent-to-buy agreement of the kind commonly written over two to five years with a weekly payment that usually bundles insurance, servicing and road tax. If that is you, the first document to read after an accident is your own hire or rent-to-buy agreement, not anything the insurers send you. It governs what happens next: who reports the damage, what excess you are exposed to, whether weekly payments continue while the car is off the road, and what you are contractually required to do and by when.
On rent-to-buy specifically, there is one question we will not answer for you, because answering it honestly means admitting that it varies. Providers generally do not publish how the equity you have built up through your weekly payments is treated if the car is written off in a total loss. Some agreements deal with it, some are silent, and the treatment can differ significantly between companies. Do not accept a verbal reassurance from anyone, including us. Find the clause in your own agreement that covers total loss, insurance write-off or termination on damage, read it, and if it is unclear ask your provider to confirm the position in writing before you agree to anything.
Ownership also shapes who claims what. If you do not own the vehicle, the repair or total loss claim for the car itself usually sits with the owner, while your own losses as the driver are a separate matter: the cost of a compliant replacement so you can keep working, and potentially continuing rental payments and lost earnings, all subject to liability and evidence. This is why we speak to your rental company early rather than working around them. It avoids two parties claiming the same thing, and it stops you being caught between a hire company chasing weekly payments and an insurer refusing to accept a claim it was never told about.
Step by step
What to do next
- 1Report the accident and secure your own position first. Get details from the other driver: name, address, registration, insurer and policy number, plus photographs of both vehicles, the road layout and any damage. Report the collision to your own insurer as required by your policy even though you are the non-fault party. If your PCO driver licence was granted on or after 1 July 2024 and the incident results in any arrest and release, charge, caution, conviction, DVLA points or fixed penalty notice, notify TfL within 48 hours as your licence condition requires.
- 2Tell us you are a licensed PCO driver at the very first contact. This single fact changes what we source for you. Say clearly that you hold a TfL private hire driver licence, that your vehicle held a private hire vehicle licence, and which platform or operator you work through. It stops an ordinary courtesy car being arranged by default and starts the search for a plated, hire and reward insured replacement instead. Tell us at the same time whether you own the car, rent it weekly or are in a rent-to-buy agreement, because that determines who else needs to be involved.
- 3Gather the documents that prove your need. Have ready your PCO driver licence, the private hire vehicle licence details for your own car, the V5C, your current MOT certificate, your insurance certificate and recent earnings evidence from your platform or operator. If you rent, add your hire or rent-to-buy agreement. These documents do two jobs: they let a replacement be arranged and approved quickly, and they evidence reasonable need if hire charges are later challenged by the at-fault insurer. Sending them all at once, on day one, is the single biggest thing you can do to shorten the delay.
- 4Reply in writing to any unsuitable courtesy car offer. If the third-party insurer offers an ordinary car, do not accept it and do not ignore it. Reply in writing stating that you are a licensed London private hire driver, that the vehicle offered has no TfL private hire vehicle licence, no licence discs and no hire and reward insurance, and that it therefore cannot lawfully be used for your work. Ask whether they can supply a plated, hire and reward insured private hire vehicle instead. Keep a copy of the offer, your reply and the dates, because the timeline is what any later mitigation argument turns on.
- 5Get the replacement onto your platform account straight away. A plated car in your driveway earns nothing until the platform has approved it. As soon as the replacement is confirmed, add the vehicle to your driver account and upload its PHV licence, hire and reward insurance certificate, MOT and V5C so the registration, make and model match your profile. Check the MOT issue date, as certificates over six months old are commonly rejected for private hire vehicles. Chase the approval rather than assuming it is progressing, and do not carry passengers until it has actually gone through.
- 6Keep the hire period tight and engage with the repair or valuation. Respond quickly to the engineer inspection, chase repair updates and, if your car is declared a total loss, engage with the valuation early instead of letting it drift. An unnecessarily long hire period is the first thing a defendant insurer attacks, and shortening it protects both the claim and you. If your car is written off, start looking for a replacement that can actually be plated, and factor in TfL licensing and platform approval time rather than assuming you can buy a car on Friday and work on Saturday.
- 7Handle any injury enquiry separately and on your own terms. We are an accident management company and we do not handle personal injury in-house. If you were hurt, see a GP or attend an urgent care centre and keep the records. If you want an injury claim explored, we can refer you to an authorised legal partner, but only with your separate written consent, given after we have explained what the referral involves. Nothing about your replacement vehicle depends on you agreeing to that referral, and you should never feel pushed into it in order to get a car.
Related PCO pages
PCO accident claims hub →
The full picture for TfL-licensed London private hire drivers.
Accident in a hired PCO car →Who claims what when you rent or rent-to-buy your vehicle.
PCO loss of earnings →Evidencing and recovering self-employed income.
PCO courtesy car →What you are offered versus what you are entitled to.
PCO car written off →Total loss, valuations and rent-to-buy consequences.
TfL licence & accidents →Notification duties and licence risk after an incident.
Minicab & PHV hub →The wider UK private hire vertical.
Frequently asked questions
- Will the replacement car be plated and legal for Uber or Bolt work?
- That is the entire point of a like-for-like PCO replacement. We source vehicles that already hold a current TfL private hire vehicle licence, display the correct licence discs and are covered by hire and reward insurance for the hire period, so you can add the vehicle to your platform account and work in it lawfully. Availability of a suitable plated vehicle, and your eligibility for a replacement at all, always depend on liability and on the circumstances of your claim, so we confirm the position on your specific case rather than promising an outcome in advance.
- What happens if I just work in the ordinary courtesy car anyway?
- You would be driving a vehicle with no TfL private hire vehicle licence and no licence discs, almost certainly on a policy limited to social, domestic and pleasure use rather than hire and reward. Using a vehicle on a road without insurance covering the actual use is an offence under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and is treated as an absolute offence, so intention is irrelevant. Convictions typically carry an IN10 endorsement with six to eight penalty points or discretionary disqualification. On top of that you would risk your PCO licence, your platform account and any cover for a subsequent incident.
- Does the replacement have to be Zero Emission Capable?
- Not necessarily, because the ZEC requirement bites at the point a vehicle is licensed for the first time, not on who is driving it. Since 1 January 2023 any PHV licensed for the first time in London must be Zero Emission Capable, meeting either Route 1 (no more than 50g/km CO2 with at least 10 miles zero emission range) or Route 2 (no more than 75g/km CO2 with at least 20 miles), and must meet Euro 6 if it has a combustion engine. A vehicle already licensed before then can stay in service, though it faces a 10 year age limit at re-licensing. What matters to you is that the replacement is currently plated.
- Do I have to pay for the replacement vehicle up front?
- Under a credit hire arrangement you are not asked to pay the hire charges up front. The vehicle is supplied to you under an agreement, the charges are recorded and the claim for them is pursued from the at-fault party's insurer as part of your loss. That is what makes it workable for a driver whose income has just stopped. It is not a guarantee that every pound of the charges will be recovered, because a defendant can challenge whether hire was reasonably needed, for how long and at what rate. Read your hire agreement so you understand your own obligations under it.
- How long can I keep the replacement car?
- For as long as you reasonably need it, which is measured by the mechanics of your claim rather than a fixed allowance. Broadly it runs from the point your own vehicle became unusable until it is repaired and back on the road, or for a reasonable period around settlement if it is written off. Engineer inspections, parts availability, disputed liability and, after a total loss, the time needed to buy and plate a new car all extend it. We do not quote an average number of days, because we would be inventing a figure. Keeping the period tight protects your claim from a mitigation argument.
- I rent my PCO car. Can I still get a replacement?
- Often yes, but the route is different and your own agreement drives it. If you do not own the vehicle, the claim for the car itself normally sits with the owner, while your losses as the driver are separate: the need for a compliant replacement so you can keep earning, and potentially continuing rental payments and lost earnings, all subject to liability and evidence. Tell us at first contact that you rent, and give us the hire company's details so we can speak to them early. That prevents duplicate claims and stops you being caught between the rental company and the insurer.
- What happens to my rent-to-buy equity if the car is written off?
- We will not guess at this, and you should be sceptical of anyone who does. Rent-to-buy providers in London generally do not publish how accrued equity is treated on a total loss, and the treatment varies between agreements: some deal with it expressly, others are silent. Find the clause in your own contract covering total loss, insurance write-off or termination following damage, and read it. If it is not clear, ask your provider to confirm the position in writing before you agree to anything or sign a new agreement. A verbal reassurance from a salesperson is not something you can rely on later.
- Can I claim my lost earnings while I was off the road?
- Loss of earnings can form part of a non-fault claim, but it has to be evidenced rather than estimated. That means platform or operator statements covering a representative period before the accident, your accounts or tax returns if you file them, and a clear record of the dates you were unable to work. Where a suitable replacement vehicle was provided, the recoverable loss is usually limited to the genuine gap rather than the whole off-road period. As with everything else, liability and eligibility qualify it, and nobody can promise you a guaranteed figure before the evidence is assessed.
- Do I have to tell TfL about the accident?
- There is no general duty to report every collision to TfL simply because it happened. What you must watch is the notification condition on your licence. Private hire driver licences granted on or after 1 July 2024 carry a condition requiring notification to TfL within 48 hours of any arrest and release, charge, caution, conviction, DVLA penalty points or fixed penalty notice, and that includes driving offences that put points on your DVLA licence. If your licence predates that, you are still under an obligation to report new convictions and cautions, and TfL encourages drivers to work to the 48 hour standard anyway.
- Do you handle injury claims as well?
- No. We are an accident management company: recovery, secure storage, replacement vehicles, repair coordination, engineer inspection and correspondence with the third-party insurer. We do not handle personal injury in-house. If you were hurt in the collision, we can refer you to an authorised legal partner, but only with your separate written consent given after we have explained what the referral involves. Your replacement vehicle is not conditional on agreeing to that referral. We also work with car and van drivers only, so we are not the right people for HGV, lorry, bus or coach claims.
Important notice for PCO drivers
Liability remains subject to the at-fault driver's insurer's assessment and the available evidence. Replacement vehicle, credit hire, recovery, storage, repair and loss of earnings support are subject to eligibility, the evidential record and reasonable need. We do not provide legal advice and we do not handle personal injury in-house: injury enquiries are referred only with your separate written consent to authorised legal or regulated partners. Information about TfL private hire licensing, Zero Emission Capable standards, vehicle age limits and notification duties is general guidance, not legal or licensing advice, and the position applying to your own licence at the relevant date will govern. Rental, rent-to-buy and finance terms vary between providers: always check the specific clauses in your own agreement.
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