Help with car accident!

[meliahz]

Hi everyone! I'm hoping someone will be able to help me. We went to WDW in December and rented a mini van, which was hit while we were in Animal Kingdom (yah, we came out to find our grill on the ground and no note or anything! - I was BEYOND PISSED!!!) Anyway, my insurance covered a whopping $56 and I was billed the balance of $738 from the car rental company. So . . . I made a claim with MasterCard and they paid my $500 deductible. Anyway, they don't pay the admin fees, but will pay the loss of use fees if the rental company provides a fleet utilization log. Well, the rental company doesn't provide that. So . . . I was wondering if anyone else has gone thru this. Is there anyway of getting out of paying that fee? Please help!!!

Thank you!

 

[seashoreCM]

I assume that the car rental company added the loss of use charge to your credit card bill. By now (March for a December rental) it may be too late.

You should have at least tried to file an ordinary dispute with your credit card company. The reasons would include that the car rental company did not cooperate in providing proper documentation of their loss of use claim.

If it is a nationwide rental company you could still try small claims court in the city nearest you where they have an office. Again you would state among your reasons that the rental company did not document that they indeed had a loss of use situation.

Disney hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[vbarry]

I work for an insurance company...we DO NOT pay the admin fees. I would contact them and let them know that since you have paid for the damage you are not paying the admin fees.

 

[mareed]

We just went through this with Thrifty. Someone hit us as we were pulling in to park at MGM Studios on Thanksgiving day! Their insurance did cover the basic damage, but we were billed for the loss of use and admin fee. We tried to get the people that hit us to cover it, but they never did. We just finally paid it ourselves last week to get rid of the hassle. I checked with our insurance and they said they covered nothing in the situation. I never thought about the credit card... But our total was a bit less - about $175. We just figured it was the cost of never paying for extra insurance over many, many trips over the years. If it happens again, we'll definitely check with the credit card company before paying! Although, it sounds like they just cover the deductible and we didn't have one since the other party's insurance paid, so that might not have helped us anyway. We did consider disputing the $50 admin fee, but just decided it wasn't worth the hassle. BTW, our incident was with Thrifty.

Side note - it seems to me that insurance companies should cover loss of use of a rental car. They'd cover paying for a rental car while our vehicle was in the shop if our vehicle had been damaged, so it seems like paying for a rental car that's able to be used while it's being fixed should be the same thing. Just my opinion, and obviously it's not held by those in the insurance industry!

 

[CarolA]

Write a letter and send it registered mail.

If you have anything in WRITING from your credit card company on "loss of use" send it.

Tell them that they can't charge without providing proof and that if they either (A) don't provide the requested documentation or (B) don't drop the charge you will contact the FL Attorney General to report fruadulent billing.

Been there, done that and it worked LOL! They dropped the charge. Now mine was with Hertz. If it's Alamo or Thrifty ....all bets are off! You may have to write the Attorney General and point out that they are billing without required support LOL!

Insurance WILL cover loss of use if there was ACTUAL loss of use. NO "theoretical"

 

[vbarry]

I would also call your insurance company back. This is a claim they are handling and they should pay the loss of use claim and get the documentation from the rental company....you should not have to do that. I would let your insurance company settle. I do not think any of our insured's have been billed for the lack of us not paying the Admin fee. The insurance company needs to handle this direct with the rental company but loss of use needs paid for. Good luck! Be persistant...it usually works!

 

[meliahz]

Thanks for all the advice! I'm going to try calling my insurance (Allstate) back (for the 4th time), but I really don't think they'll do anything else. When everything happened they seemed to be really on top of things and very helpful. They sent me a letter saying not to worry and that they were "investigating" or whatever, then I never heard ANYTHING from them. When I got the bill from Dollar saying I owed the $700+ I called Allstate and that's when they told me they made the $56 payment. I was really upset that they never sent me anything after the initial letter. This has never happened to me before, but I would think Allstate should send something out saying what they were billed, what they covered, etc. They also told me that they don't cover all those other fees (admin, loss of use, appraisal). They weren't very helpful at all. The local office in Hawaii is VERY helpful, but because everything was done in Florida, the local office isn't handling it. I'll try calling them again though . . . maybe they'll be able to tell me some basic stuff that may help me. If that doesn't work then I'll try writing a letter to Dollar - and I'll be PERSISTANT! Anyway, thanks again for all the help!

Oh, and the charges weren't added to my credit card bill because the case wasn't settled yet. First I went thru my insurance, then when I found out they only covered $56, I went to MasterCard . . . so Dollar was waiting.

Thanks again! I'll keep you guys posted as to what happens.

 

[DVC-Don]

Last I checked, Visa was the only card that might cover this fee.

 

[seashoreCM]

Since the charge is still unpaid, if you refuse to pay it and they put it on your credit card bill, then the time to dispute the payment starts from square one. Then they will have to "prove" their charge which would include furnishing the fleet usage log.

 

[mareed]

Based on your numbers given, a $738 bill was submitted to your insurance. You had a $500 deductible, and Allstate paid $56. That leaves $182 which is about what we were billed from Thrifty for 3 days of loss of use and a $50 or so admin fee. Our insurance is also Allstate and they told me they don't cover loss of use. We did receive an itemized bill from Thrifty showing the exact charges that were billed, and what insurance covered. Insurance (the other people had Geico) didn't cover the loss of use or admin fee, so we ended up paying it.

For those who don't know the "loss of use" is the days that the rental car company couldn't rent the vehicle out because it was being repaired. I know I read an article that someone here on DIS posted sometime a few months ago, but it's a pretty well-known gap in coverage that insurance companies don't cover loss of use when damage is done to a rental car.

If anyone knows how to get someone (credit card or ins. company) to cover the loss of use, please share! It's too late for us for our incident, but I'd sure like to know in case we're in that situation again!

 

[vbarry]

Based on your numbers given, a $738 bill was submitted to your insurance. You had a $500 deductible, and Allstate paid $56. That leaves $182 which is about what we were billed from Thrifty for 3 days of loss of use and a $50 or so admin fee. Our insurance is also Allstate and they told me they don't cover loss of use. We did receive an itemized bill from Thrifty showing the exact charges that were billed, and what insurance covered. Insurance (the other people had Geico) didn't cover the loss of use or admin fee, so we ended up paying it.

For those who don't know the "loss of use" is the days that the rental car company couldn't rent the vehicle out because it was being repaired. I know I read an article that someone here on DIS posted sometime a few months ago, but it's a pretty well-known gap in coverage that insurance companies don't cover loss of use when damage is done to a rental car.

If anyone knows how to get someone (credit card or ins. company) to cover the loss of use, please share! It's too late for us for our incident, but I'd sure like to know in case we're in that situation again!

I really think it depends on your company and your adjuster. We are not in the business to nickel and dime insureds and therefore the loss of use claim would be paid. This is a property damage claim and we would have to pay any other claimant for loss of use. The insurance world is far from black and white. You will have to pay your collision dedutible because this is a collision claim but you should not have to pay all of the out of pocket fees. This is why you have insurance and your insurance should be working with the rental company directly negotiating the payment. If your carrier argues over a few hundred dollars....I would look for a new one. There are good companies out there. Sometimes the premiums are higher but you pay for good service. Believe me....I have worked for one for 10 plus years and have paid more claims that we did not owe because we are in this to do good business....not to rip off our customer!

Good Luck. Your adjuster will get tired of hearing from you but I would keep calling! They do owe you some sort of explanation!

 

[vbarry]

One last thing...if they refuse to help you with negotiating the loss of use and admin fee then I would tell them that you want them to take their $56.00 back. That cost you a claim against your policy and in the end will cost you more than $56.00.

 

[OntFamily]

"Loss of Use" is a way for rental companies to generate extra profit. There is no other way to describe this fee. Technically, the rental car company is saying they lost use of an asset for X number of days, so they didn't generate any profit for X days. However, as it is rare a rental car company (especially in Orlando) is 100% sold out of rental cars, in reality the car rental company is not out anything, by having a car is the shop for a few days.


Good luck fighting this in court. When you signed the rental form you most likely agreed to pay "loss of use", and they also advised you in the rental agreement that they didn't have to provide any proof of loss (it's in the very small print). Unfortunately, if you signed the agreement, you are out of luck.

What car rental company did you use?

 

[meliahz]

So . . . . Allstate said that they won't cover LOU fees. I'm going to try calling Dollar tomorrow to see if I can somehow get a fleet utilization log If not, I'll try MasterCard one more time . . . then I'm done! I'll most likely end up paying! Oh well. What goes around comes around! The person who hit us and left the scene will have their turn! Thanks again. I'll let you guys know how far I get.

OntFamily: The rental company was Dollar

vbarry: Sounds like you work for a good insurance company!

 

[ZachnElli]

I really think it depends on your company and your adjuster. We are not in the business to nickel and dime insureds and therefore the loss of use claim would be paid. This is a property damage claim and we would have to pay any other claimant for loss of use. The insurance world is far from black and white. You will have to pay your collision dedutible because this is a collision claim but you should not have to pay all of the out of pocket fees. This is why you have insurance and your insurance should be working with the rental company directly negotiating the payment. If your carrier argues over a few hundred dollars....I would look for a new one. There are good companies out there. Sometimes the premiums are higher but you pay for good service. Believe me....I have worked for one for 10 plus years and have paid more claims that we did not owe because we are in this to do good business....not to rip off our customer!

Good Luck. Your adjuster will get tired of hearing from you but I would keep calling! They do owe you some sort of explanation!

Which insurance company do you work for? You should share it if they are so willing to pay for this. I work for State Farm and these fees are not covered and it is my understanding that no insurance companies do. They just published an article about this on my work computer. Visa will cover these fees, so for anyone renting a car, use a Visa! Also, some car rental companies will go after you for diminshed value, Visa also covers this.

 

[ZachnElli]

I want to add that no state requires any rental companies to keep a utilization log, therefore, many do not keep one and are not required to provide you one. I did read that you can negotiate down the days they say the vehicle was out of use. You can ask for proof of how many days it was in the shop.

 

[yayagoofy]

I take it you contacted Disney security that day ...security camera's?

 

[meliahz]

Yes, we went straight to the security that night. I LOVE Disney, but the security was basically good for nothing. All he did was give us the form to fill out and mail in (like a police report?) and that was it. Oh, and the first thing he said to us was "Did you purchase the insurance from the car rental company?" and we said "No" and he said "Aiya" - that sure made us feel good! Do they have security cameras in the parking lots? I would've hoped he would've said something to us. He just told us that he didn't hear or see anything and that no one reported anything.

 

[Echo queen]

? all of these fees are paid if you buy the companys ins.??? Just wondering. On 2 different trips our rental car has been hit by people with ins. I do recall the company calling me and trying to explain that some things where not covered. This is me on the phone with them. I don't know who paid it but I didn't.

 

[seashoreCM]

1. If you are interested in the rental company's coverage, find out what it covers first. Sometimes you pay the first so many dollars and they pay the rest, or they pay the first so many dollars and you (or your insurance company) pays the rest.

2. If you know who is at fault that person is liable for everything, loss of use included. His insurance company is responsible to him to defend him and pay whatever he has to pay if he loses the case.