I got into an accident with someone who was driving a rental car. He is also from out of town. The accident is my fault but I want to avoid going through my to pay for the damage. I heard that since rental car companies have their own , if you hit one of their cars, you dont have to worry about fixing it. Is this true, or will the rental company contact my ? How does it work?

 

  • oklatom 5:02 pm on March 8, 2010

    If you had an at fault accident, you can expect that the owner of the vehicle, the rental company, will be contacting you with the costs of repairing the vehicle and perhaps a bit more to the loss of income while the vehicle was being repaired.

    Once you get that, you can pay out of pocket leaving the insurance out of it, or notify your insurance and they will pay.

    Yes, rental companies have their own insurance, which would cover your damage if one of their cars hit you and it was their fault, but that won’t cover things you do to them that are your fault.

  • Brown 5:03 pm on March 8, 2010

    rental cars will cover your liability but you’ll have to cover damage to rental car. You will be able to use your insurance if you listed the rental car on your current insurance pol. if not then you’d have to pay out of own cash. but you’ll still need to tell your insurer you’ve had a bump either way. hope this helps.

  • Scott H 5:03 pm on March 8, 2010

    Oh, you’re mistaken. If you damage a rental car, their insurance may pay to fix it, but the insurance company is going to come after you. Not only for damages, but loss of revenue and any other charges they can legally add.

  • Old Mustang 5:03 pm on March 8, 2010

    First, it sounds like you did not purchase the Rental Companies insurance plan when you rented their vehicle. If so, might be able to do this out of pocket but several things are out of your control.

    Let’s take the car you hit first. That driver’s vehicle you are responsible to repair. And that driver is entitled to have a rental vehicle while their car is being repaired. You are responsible for that. Estimating the time required for a repair shop to fix a vehicle can be ify. If you get an estimate of 4 day and it takes a week you still are responsible to that driver.

    The rental car company does have insurance on their cars, but in the rental contract you signed it states you are responsible for physical damage to their car and for the loss of use of that vehicle. The rental car company can give a estimate of time to repair the car but it’s not absolute also. So they get to charge you for all the time their car is down. In most cases the rental car company will not be in a great hurry to repair the car.

    Both of these items can get expensive because there are items which you can not control but would be responsible for.

    You might want to re-think whether you want to report this to your insurance company. It will be a chargeable accident on your policy. But if you get working with the rental company and the other person on the charges, then realize you are over your head in expenses. Then reporting it to your insurance company, your insurance company can say it was late reporting of a claim.

    So i’d be real careful here.

  • Gabriel 5:03 pm on March 8, 2010

    It doesn’t matter if you tell your insurance or not. Rental car companies report accidents and fault to ISO, that’s what your insurance uses to rate you. Your rates will be affected whether they pay or not. Might as well get them to pay something if they’re jacking your rates, right?

  • Katie 5:03 pm on March 8, 2010

    Trust me… that rental car company is going to be contacting your insurance company, or they will start hounding you until they get the repairs paid for.

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