don't think you are off the hook when something happens with a rental and your card offers that rental car insurance .
there are usually outs for the card company's .
some will pay for damage but not loss of usage of the rental car . those that will cover loss of usage know that odds are they will not have to pay out .
that is because your card agreement states that in order to get paid the loss of usage amount they require you have a utilization report .
if the rental car company has 5 ford escorts and 3 are unrented the credit card company wants to know .
the problem is fleet utilization is top secret info . what cars are hot and what cars are not is information no rental car company wants its competitors to know and so they will not give you that report and the credit card company's know it .
so they have an out not to pay if they choose to .
"If I have full coverage, will I be responsible for any extra fees?
Unfortunately, it's possible. Rental car agencies often charge ''loss-of-use'' fees to cover the revenue they lose while a damaged car is in the shop, and those fees can total hundreds of dollars.
American Express, MasterCard and Visa (but not Discover) say they will pay those fees as long as the rental car agencies provide documentation, usually a ''fleet utilization log,'' verifying they actually lost money because the damaged car was out of service. Here's the problem: rental companies consider those logs confidential; they argue that, legally, they don't have to provide them. So while your rental company and credit card company play the blame game, you can end up on the hook for the bill. (Note: In some states, such as New York and Wisconsin, car rental companies aren't allowed to charge loss-of-use fees. In others, auto insurers are required by law to pay those fees.)
Fortunately, credit card companies have become more willing in recent years to pay loss-of-use fees, rental car claims administrators say. Some now accept repair estimates as documentation instead of fleet utilization logs. "They've created standards to determine how much they'll pay based on the repair cost," says Andrew Sutter, president of damage-recovery company Total Fleet Solutions. "So maybe four hours of damage repair equals one day of loss of use that they'll pay."
Are some card companies more willing than others to pay those extra fees?
Rental car claims administrators in three different states told CreditCards.com that Visa is the most willing to pay up, followed by American Express. "Visa without a doubt will pay loss of use, and that's not always the case with MasterCard and AmEx," says Coppere Williams, senior claims specialist at Khoury-Alternative Claims Management, a damage-recovery company based in San Antonio. "They will also cover an administrative fee without batting an eye. They are very reasonable."
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