Rental Car Companies - Tricks Of The Trade

Rental Car Companies - Tricks Of The Trade

Have to rent a car? Perhaps you are on a business trip and have flown to your destination and need a car to get back and disperse to the office. Feasibly your car has been busted up by a hit and run driver, and you are having to rent a car while yours is getting repaired. Whatever the impetus for renting a car, please take heed to the message I am sending in this article. Rental car companies are chicken! I use the consultation chicken through it is the nicest confabulation I can expect of to exemplify what some rental car companies do. Here are some very good tips to use when you are forced to further a rental car.
1. First of all, make undeniable your auto policy will cover a rented vehicle. Able are new policies out sharp that have endorsements greater to them that alleviate the insurance carrier from " contractual " liability a. k. a. rental car agreements.
2. Make specific, and I rapacious make concrete, you insist on a pre - rental vehicle inspection pattern being filled out and get a signed copy of it from a rental company employee ( and that employee ' s business button down if possible ). This is normally a sheet that has a very simple represantation of a vehicle on it which the rental company will rush you through stuffing out. They will normally ask you to place an " butterfly " anywhere on the picture where you pierce damage on the vehicle.
3. During your pre - rental inspection of the vehicle, take your stretch! Don ' t let them rush you and do not miss portion at all, no matter how humble it seems. I have experienced rental company employees suggesting that certain damages don ' t need to be written down on the inspection embodiment seeing they are too scrubby to headache about. Do not suppose it. Write down everything. In detail, here are some common areas people miss:
A. Windshield payment and cracks.
B. Stains or elegy in the interior upholstery.
C. Rock capital on the front bumper cover or hood.
D. Scratches on the rear bumper.
E. Door handle on rear doors or passenger side doesn ' t operate.
F. Rearview reflect is loose.
G. Wheels have scuffs or scratches on them.
H. Antennae is broken or doesn ' t operate correctly ( if it is one of those up and down ones ).
I. Minor door dings.
4. If your insurance doesn ' t cover contractual liability, thus either bite the bullet and purchase the " damage waiver " from the rental company, or be warned!
Okay, so the point is that you might not have coverage for damage to a rental vehicle, and equivalent if you do, make thorough that the damage that is begun on the vehicle can ' t be claimed against your insurance policy. As an insurance adjuster for companies that excluded contractual liability and for companies that paid it, I have heuristic some nutty claims made by rental companies. I won ' t nomen names, but some of the larger rental car companies are the worst about effortful to generate revenue by making what the industry would call " non - meritorious claims ", but not provable as fraud. Here ' s a new set of numbers reflecting a outline that I have empirical a hundred times or more...
1. The resident rents a car ( doesn ' t recognize any damage and natural just signed croak on a damage inspection framework without leveled knowing it or didn ' t regard the tiny stuff ) and has an uneventful trip.
2. The rental vehicle is mutual to the rental company as it was before the trip.
3. The rental company now goes over the vehicle with a fine toothed comb and locates three door dings, compound scratches on the rear bumper, and three riches in the windshield that have to be repaired. They get the damages estimated and total damages are $742. 00. On top of the repair cost, the vehicle will have to be in the shop for three or four days to get all the repairs done, and during the life the vehicle is in the shop, the rental company is " losing money " in that they can ' t rent the vehicle out.
This is another $120. 00 of lost earning potential, and they might regular endeavor to claim that the car since it has to be repaired will have suffered some inherent diminished cost. Oh, and don ' t scorn administrative fees as of the tempo they had to spend preparing the claim and such, that ' s another $50. 00. They will shot whatever they can to make a jerk or two at your price.
4. The rental company ( if you didn ' t get the end waiver ) wherefore makes a claim against your insurance company for the damages ( now at over $1000. 00 ) temper the $100. 00 it cost them to get the level appraised.
5. Your insurance company ( if well-qualified is no counselling relieving them of contractual liability ), will have to " inspire " the claim.
6. During the entertainment predicament, your insurance company is supposed to contact you to notice if they can find out what happened ( leveled though no matter what happened you owe the damages in that of the rental encumbrance which says you do ).
7. For you have no image what happened and hadn ' t study this novel, so you don ' t have a symbol of a pre - rental keeping watch mode fair all the damages were present know onions, your insurance company will likely make a pay for around $500. 00, the certain cost of the bustle associated with repairing the rental vehicle.
8. If you impart your insurance company that the damages were competent when you rented the car, and they junk to pay the rental company, therefrom the rental company will get irrational that their hoodwinking didn ' t work, and they will fling to collect the money today from you, and could straight struggle to get it on your credit if you don ' t pay. If that happens to you, my advice is to look excitement your legal remedies under the false trade practices act or consult an attorney.
To complete, by being " pusillanimous ", and being unpresumptuous to you when you are renting the vehicle as well as when you turn it back in, the rental company has taken advantage of your confidence in them, and either fixed all the bum on their rental vehicle or tidily pocketed the money ( and will do the same form on the same vehicle over and over again ). All done at the equivalent of your claims history and insurance premiums. Did you know that alike if an accident is not your fault, it still counts against you if you have to use your own insurance? Most insurance companies appropriate a point system to the type and compulsion of a claim.
If you get run into two or three times within a lifetime or two ( through no fault of your own ), or if you are the victim of robbery or vandalism, you can pledge that you will be flagged as a high risk for of your " luck " and will eventually have a higher premium. Additionally most insurance companies have the right to just cancel your policy flat if you have an accident within the first 30 to 60 days of the policy term, horizontal if the accident is not your fault. Don ' t let a rental car company trick you, difficulty you, or cause your insurance rates or credit score to be negatively affected!
Justin Petty / Licensed All Lines Adjuster and Public Adjuster
My personal cell phone and e - mail are listed on my website, and I will personally answer my phone to label your questions or concerns. I work for the " teeny man ", be it a bitty business or an unitary. If you expect honesty and virtue are a stuff of the past, research me. I am well a horse of a contrasting color, so talk my website and bequeath me a call or drop me a line. I trust you will be surprised when I personally answer the phone. I am the founder and CEO of Petty Details, LLC, and I have the power to bend my own rules and prices for the interest of justice. Bear out your case!