Resolving Your Rental Car Claim

If your vehicle is rendered inoperable because of the accident, your first concern (after the health and well- being of you and your passengers) will probably be finding substitute transportation. Unfortunately, most insurance companies are not going to step up immediately and put you into a rental vehicle. You will probably have to use your own credit card to secure a rental vehicle until such time as the other party's insurance company decides to accept responsibility for this expense.

Hopefully you will have Rental Reimbursement Coverage on your own auto insurance policy which will be available to you as a backup to what the other party's insurance company is going to try to pay you. The adjusting technique we will be discussing here is probably about the most often employed by most insurance companies. The other party's insurance company is going to try to limit what they reimburse you in daily rental charges and will refuse to reimburse you any CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) expense you may have incurred. It would not be unusual for the other party's insurance adjuster to tell you "We only pay $15.00 per day (or some other arbitrary amount) for daily rental charges and we do not pay CDW at all". That is so wrong and yet is so common. The insurance industry as a whole probably saves billions of dollars annually with this one abusive adjusting technique. By case law precedence, you are entitled to be reimbursed for reasonable costs incurred in renting a temporary substitute vehicle that is comparable to your damaged vehicle. If your damaged vehicle is a Buick Park Avenue, you should not be reimbursed based upon the cost to rent a Geo Metro. Yet, there will be insurance companies that will attempt to resolve your rental reimbursement claim based upon their own ridiculous standards. The other party's insurance company will also attempt to deny reimbursement for CDW charges, saying that your own Collision Coverage should transfer to the rental vehicle. Often times this is true, which makes denial of coverage a non-issue. However, when your Collision Coverage does not transfer, or when you do not have Collision Coverage on your own vehicle, this denial of coverage needs to be challenged. You should not have to assume a financial risk greater than that of driving your own vehicle. If you accept less than full reimbursement for all costs incurred in renting a temporary substitute vehicle, you can submit your un-reimbursed expenses to your own insurance company for add'l reimbursement under your own Rental Reimbursement coverage. However, if the other party's insurance company is not going to reimburse you fully for your rental expenses, you should consider this as a sample of how you are going to be treated on the rest of your claim and SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP from a good attorney. You should consider your treatment on your Rental Vehicle Claim as an early warning of how you are going to be treated later on.