This is a frequently asked topic. Since we have to invoke the coverage last Sept, I thought I would share our experiences here. Others please feel free to chime in your own knowledge and experiences.
First of all, I cannot emphasize enough that anyone who intends to take advantage of this benefit PLEASE PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENTS THAT COME WITH YOUR CARD. The coverage is provided by your card issuer and every issuer has its own rules and policies. It used to be going by the category of cards, such as Mastercard Platinum, Visa Signature, etc In recent months the situation seems to change to going by the issuers as I have read on other sites that some people found out by nasty surprise that their MC Platinum did not provide their coverage they thought they have. Dont assume anything, read the fine print of the document. If you misplaced your document, or your document is kind of old, say dd 2005 or even 2004 when you first got your card - call your card company to request a fresh document. Things do change.
Please also note, the coverage I write about here is the CDW or LDW, i.e. the damage and loss to the rental car itself. There is no personal injury or property damage liability coverage by credit card. That either comes from your own car liability insurance, or in many cases, the rental car rate includes such insurance. If you dont have car liability insurance yourself, it is always a good idea to verify with rental car company whether the rate includes the liability coverage. You can call the HQ or e-mail them - Avis for example, is very good in confirming/answering your questions, takes about 3 to 5 days but they do response. This is important especially for international rental.
Generally other than Diner's, all credit card rental car coverages are SECONDARY domestically (Primary Internationally, with exclusion of several countries), except : You dont have car insurance at all, or your own car insurance is for liability only. In these cases, the CC coverage become Primary. Since Mastercard has bought Diner's, it may soon change to be the same as MC.
Both MC & Visa provide coverage on Repair, Loss of Usage. Visa also covers Admin charges. AMEX only recently added Loss of Usage to its coverage.
Despite the wording though, only Repair costs are readily accepted if they are reasonable. The Loss of Usage requires detailed support of Fleet Utilization Log - either the rental car company refuses to provide such, or not in "detail" enough to the CC and 99% of time it is denied.
When the CC coverage is secondary, your own car insurance will pay for any qualified damage claims and such, minus the deductible. Hence the CC picks up the deductible portion. When the CC coverage is primary, the CC picks up any qualified damage claims without deductible. They either accept the claim item(s) or deny them. When CC pays the damage, you dont need to worry about your insurance rate might go up. When your own car insurance company pays it, be prepared your rate will go up for the renewal.
The first thing if you incur an accident or damage, call the 800 number to register a claim. Our main cards are from Citi, and they let MC Assist handle all the claims so the 800 number is to MC Assist. Again, consult your own document to see the procedure.
Ask what documentations you need to prepare in order to support your claim.
That means :
Things you can provide yourself :
Pictures / DVD to show the damage,
Police Report,
Rental Car Contract and any check-out paper to go with it,
Payment Receipt when you return the car,
Damage Report you filed with the rental car company,
The credit card statement showing your credit limit AND the charge of the rental,
Things provided by rental car company :
Repair Estimates or Bills
Utilization Log to support Loss of Usage (Very very rare the CC would pay eventhough they provide the coverage)
How soon and how smoothly the claim is settled, depends whether you are dealing with a corporate location of rental car company, or a franchisee, or worse yet, the franchisee is owned by a leasing company ... that would be your worst scenario and that was exactly we had.
Last Sept we visited YS NP. We rented a mid-size from Thrifty. On the 2nd last night just outside North Gate, there was a hailstorm around midnight. Our car sustained quite a bit hail damages - the whole front hood was full of dimples, followed by the roof, and some minor ones on the trunk cover. We did not realize the damage right away as it was raining hard the whole day next day. Not until we returned to Jacksonhole and when the sun finally came out, I noticed a good size dimple at the front end of the car, then another, then another ... you got the picture.
The first thing I did was to find a payphone to call Citi and get the MC Assist 800 number. Next thing I called MC Assist and was told I need a Police Report. Now this is weather damage, how can one get a Police Report? Well, the police will do something like a report, called "Citizen Assist for Insurance Purpose" - basically just documenting you went to the police ask for such and they provided it as Citizen Assist. We spent a good hour looking for the Jacksonhole Police Dept - it would not be this hard if it was daytime - but it was totally unidentifiable in the dark, near the Court House. The police officer we talked to did not even bother to go inside, but took the info right on the street. Eventually it took me several phone calls to get them to mail me the report in the coming weeks.
The next morning we spent a good hour to video the damages - because there were so many ding and dimples of various sizes, we cut up some colour paper in the size of quarter, dime and nickel the night before - laying these colored circles on the car to identify the damages. We then wrote a statement to identify how many quarter size (in green), dime size (in yellow), nickel size (in red) and as my hu*****and was making the video, I was reading the statement. The whole purpose is to make the damages as readily identifiable as possible, so there is no second guess. This proved to be extremely useful as MC did not question a single word about the repair estimate of $2282 - they saw the damage was extensive and it did take this much to get it fixed (or deduction when the rental car company return the car when lease is up).
We received a claim number from MC Assist. They sent us a letter telling us the documents they needed, as well as who is our claim adjuster. With MC, you have 30 days to file a claim after damage, 180 days after filing a claim to send in all the paperwork. I believe Visa is 45 days and 365 days respectively, not sure.
While we were waiting for the credit card statement, Hurricane Wilma hit. The whole area lost power for like 3+ weeks. Nothing can be done. When Post Office finally opened, we received a follow-up letter from MC (30 dyas passed). I rushed to fax the most urgent papers they wanted, then sent them the rest by Priority Mail, followed by an email to the Claim Adjuster to ask him to acknowledge receipt of such.
2 weeks later I received email response from our claim adjuster, said he received everything he needed, and he was just waiting for the rental car company to submit its side of claim. This was Mid November, about 2 months after the incident.
We waited and waited and waited - did not see any charges from Thrifty going thru our credit card, did not receive any phone call - we were very puzzled how come it took so long?! The usual stories we heard were the rental car companies ran thru a humongous charges to your card and then you fight with it and so on so forth ... Hind sight, if long enough time has passed, and you still dont hear anything, you need to take initiative and contact both the CC and the rental car company to find out what is going on. Chance is nothing has ever been done and you are at the edge of being sent a collection letter! That would be a very nasty development.
We went on a 10 day X'mas cruise between Dec 18 and 28. Imagine the surprise we had, when we received a phone call from Thrifty's Insurance Handling Agent on Dec 30, Friday, around 6:45pm right before a 3 day long weekend of the New Year Holiday!
It turned out, the Thrifty at Jacksonhole is owned by a leasing company in Billing, MT, and apparently the leasing company is either owned or part of another leasing company in Las Vegas! When we filed the damage report at the counter, I noticed at the top corner of the form, there is this company's name and address is in Las Vegas. I then knew this location is a franchisee but I never thought it would be this complicated.
Because all the paperwork from Jacksonhole would be sent to Billing (the repair estimate was also done by a shop at Billing) and then being forwarded to Las Vegas - it delayed everything. Further complicated things is, my hu*****and is the additional cardholder of the card, I am the primary cardholder. He does has his name imprinted on his card and the card was used for rental, thus the claim was accepted. BUT, when this Las Vegas office called MC, MC cannot recognize my hu*****and's name from the system or for some reason, according to this woman, MC kept telling her we did not have a claim. She called once when we were away. She was ready to send this matter to the collection agency but would give it another try ... I dont know how much I can trust her, but ... the reality was we discovered the rental car company and MC were not in touch at all in the past 3 months! I gave her the claim number and she said that should make things rolling then.
OK, the following 3 weeks I found myself becoming the Co-ordinator between our claim adjuster and the claim agent of Thrifty - MC insisted it did not receive the repair estimate, Thrifty lady insisted she sent it. I finally asked Thrifty lady to send me a set of papers she claimed faxed to MC. Of all the paper I got, only the Repair Estimate is of any meaning and is new - the rest of paper we already submitted to MC long ago. I finally got lucky one evening well pass 6pm when I called the Nth time, the CSR at MC end was very sympathetic, and she held the phone while I faxed her the Repair Estimate. She came back to confirm she got it from the machine and would make sure it would be on our claim adjuster's desk.... Whew!
The claim adjuster called in a few days - he was ready to settle, just pay the Repair Estimate. I naively asked him to hold off and tried my best to get the Fleet Utilitization Log from Thrifty. Well, we got the Fleet Utilization Log but it was deemed unacceptable by MC as it wasn't specific enough - it only claimed 87% utilization rate during the period ... Thrifty lady told me the CC wont pay it, she has never seen CC pay such other than the damage. In fact she said our claim was the first one she saw CC agree to pay in full the repair estimate ... At the end, we agree to let MC pay the repair estimate - I let them send a check directly to Thrifty Claim Agent at Las Vegas instead to us. Then we negotiated with Thrifty Claim Agent on the balance - the Loss of Usage was $242 and the Admin Fee was $150. At the end we paid a total of $312 by credit card over the phone - that was the condition Thrifty Claim Agent asked in order to reduce the total sum. Of course, there is some shady accounting here... especially Thrifty wont send me a receipt for this portion, claiming the credit card statement will serve as our receipt. They did send a receipt for the MC portion of $2282 after the check was cleared. We feel the Loss of Usage has some ground as to repair such body damage would take 4 to 5 days at least (fill the dimples, smooth them out, wait for them to completely dry, paint one coat, wait for it to dry, another coat, etc etc) The Admin Fee is just another way to squeeze some money. We could, of course, fight such charges and to settle in Small Claim Court. However, that would be a major hassle, and probably would leave a mark on my credit report - I really do not want to risk such and am just glad MC did pick up the major tab ...
Oh, MC sent me a letter informing me what they paid and what they denied - but the denied items were incomplete and no details - that was the oversight by the claim adjuster as the system generated letter spit out what he put in. I called and asked the CSR to leave a message for the adjust to resend a letter showing the details of the denied items as well. I need this as from beginning till end, I have nothing in writing regarding the total claims, only verbal information. MC did resend a letter with the proper information which matched with my note. With this letter, Thrifty's receipt of the Repair Estimate, and my credit card statement showing the $312 balance we paid - I can finally close the file. That was by the end of January, 4 months after filing the claim.
Bottomline, make sure to follow up when you dont hear anything further from both parties - that is not right, something is falling into crack, and if you dont intervene, the consequence may be very unpleasant.
At least now we know the CC coverage does work, once you understand how to make it work. :-)
First of all, I cannot emphasize enough that anyone who intends to take advantage of this benefit PLEASE PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENTS THAT COME WITH YOUR CARD. The coverage is provided by your card issuer and every issuer has its own rules and policies. It used to be going by the category of cards, such as Mastercard Platinum, Visa Signature, etc In recent months the situation seems to change to going by the issuers as I have read on other sites that some people found out by nasty surprise that their MC Platinum did not provide their coverage they thought they have. Dont assume anything, read the fine print of the document. If you misplaced your document, or your document is kind of old, say dd 2005 or even 2004 when you first got your card - call your card company to request a fresh document. Things do change.
Please also note, the coverage I write about here is the CDW or LDW, i.e. the damage and loss to the rental car itself. There is no personal injury or property damage liability coverage by credit card. That either comes from your own car liability insurance, or in many cases, the rental car rate includes such insurance. If you dont have car liability insurance yourself, it is always a good idea to verify with rental car company whether the rate includes the liability coverage. You can call the HQ or e-mail them - Avis for example, is very good in confirming/answering your questions, takes about 3 to 5 days but they do response. This is important especially for international rental.
Generally other than Diner's, all credit card rental car coverages are SECONDARY domestically (Primary Internationally, with exclusion of several countries), except : You dont have car insurance at all, or your own car insurance is for liability only. In these cases, the CC coverage become Primary. Since Mastercard has bought Diner's, it may soon change to be the same as MC.
Both MC & Visa provide coverage on Repair, Loss of Usage. Visa also covers Admin charges. AMEX only recently added Loss of Usage to its coverage.
Despite the wording though, only Repair costs are readily accepted if they are reasonable. The Loss of Usage requires detailed support of Fleet Utilization Log - either the rental car company refuses to provide such, or not in "detail" enough to the CC and 99% of time it is denied.
When the CC coverage is secondary, your own car insurance will pay for any qualified damage claims and such, minus the deductible. Hence the CC picks up the deductible portion. When the CC coverage is primary, the CC picks up any qualified damage claims without deductible. They either accept the claim item(s) or deny them. When CC pays the damage, you dont need to worry about your insurance rate might go up. When your own car insurance company pays it, be prepared your rate will go up for the renewal.
The first thing if you incur an accident or damage, call the 800 number to register a claim. Our main cards are from Citi, and they let MC Assist handle all the claims so the 800 number is to MC Assist. Again, consult your own document to see the procedure.
Ask what documentations you need to prepare in order to support your claim.
That means :
Things you can provide yourself :
Pictures / DVD to show the damage,
Police Report,
Rental Car Contract and any check-out paper to go with it,
Payment Receipt when you return the car,
Damage Report you filed with the rental car company,
The credit card statement showing your credit limit AND the charge of the rental,
Things provided by rental car company :
Repair Estimates or Bills
Utilization Log to support Loss of Usage (Very very rare the CC would pay eventhough they provide the coverage)
How soon and how smoothly the claim is settled, depends whether you are dealing with a corporate location of rental car company, or a franchisee, or worse yet, the franchisee is owned by a leasing company ... that would be your worst scenario and that was exactly we had.
Last Sept we visited YS NP. We rented a mid-size from Thrifty. On the 2nd last night just outside North Gate, there was a hailstorm around midnight. Our car sustained quite a bit hail damages - the whole front hood was full of dimples, followed by the roof, and some minor ones on the trunk cover. We did not realize the damage right away as it was raining hard the whole day next day. Not until we returned to Jacksonhole and when the sun finally came out, I noticed a good size dimple at the front end of the car, then another, then another ... you got the picture.
The first thing I did was to find a payphone to call Citi and get the MC Assist 800 number. Next thing I called MC Assist and was told I need a Police Report. Now this is weather damage, how can one get a Police Report? Well, the police will do something like a report, called "Citizen Assist for Insurance Purpose" - basically just documenting you went to the police ask for such and they provided it as Citizen Assist. We spent a good hour looking for the Jacksonhole Police Dept - it would not be this hard if it was daytime - but it was totally unidentifiable in the dark, near the Court House. The police officer we talked to did not even bother to go inside, but took the info right on the street. Eventually it took me several phone calls to get them to mail me the report in the coming weeks.
The next morning we spent a good hour to video the damages - because there were so many ding and dimples of various sizes, we cut up some colour paper in the size of quarter, dime and nickel the night before - laying these colored circles on the car to identify the damages. We then wrote a statement to identify how many quarter size (in green), dime size (in yellow), nickel size (in red) and as my hu*****and was making the video, I was reading the statement. The whole purpose is to make the damages as readily identifiable as possible, so there is no second guess. This proved to be extremely useful as MC did not question a single word about the repair estimate of $2282 - they saw the damage was extensive and it did take this much to get it fixed (or deduction when the rental car company return the car when lease is up).
We received a claim number from MC Assist. They sent us a letter telling us the documents they needed, as well as who is our claim adjuster. With MC, you have 30 days to file a claim after damage, 180 days after filing a claim to send in all the paperwork. I believe Visa is 45 days and 365 days respectively, not sure.
While we were waiting for the credit card statement, Hurricane Wilma hit. The whole area lost power for like 3+ weeks. Nothing can be done. When Post Office finally opened, we received a follow-up letter from MC (30 dyas passed). I rushed to fax the most urgent papers they wanted, then sent them the rest by Priority Mail, followed by an email to the Claim Adjuster to ask him to acknowledge receipt of such.
2 weeks later I received email response from our claim adjuster, said he received everything he needed, and he was just waiting for the rental car company to submit its side of claim. This was Mid November, about 2 months after the incident.
We waited and waited and waited - did not see any charges from Thrifty going thru our credit card, did not receive any phone call - we were very puzzled how come it took so long?! The usual stories we heard were the rental car companies ran thru a humongous charges to your card and then you fight with it and so on so forth ... Hind sight, if long enough time has passed, and you still dont hear anything, you need to take initiative and contact both the CC and the rental car company to find out what is going on. Chance is nothing has ever been done and you are at the edge of being sent a collection letter! That would be a very nasty development.
We went on a 10 day X'mas cruise between Dec 18 and 28. Imagine the surprise we had, when we received a phone call from Thrifty's Insurance Handling Agent on Dec 30, Friday, around 6:45pm right before a 3 day long weekend of the New Year Holiday!
It turned out, the Thrifty at Jacksonhole is owned by a leasing company in Billing, MT, and apparently the leasing company is either owned or part of another leasing company in Las Vegas! When we filed the damage report at the counter, I noticed at the top corner of the form, there is this company's name and address is in Las Vegas. I then knew this location is a franchisee but I never thought it would be this complicated.
Because all the paperwork from Jacksonhole would be sent to Billing (the repair estimate was also done by a shop at Billing) and then being forwarded to Las Vegas - it delayed everything. Further complicated things is, my hu*****and is the additional cardholder of the card, I am the primary cardholder. He does has his name imprinted on his card and the card was used for rental, thus the claim was accepted. BUT, when this Las Vegas office called MC, MC cannot recognize my hu*****and's name from the system or for some reason, according to this woman, MC kept telling her we did not have a claim. She called once when we were away. She was ready to send this matter to the collection agency but would give it another try ... I dont know how much I can trust her, but ... the reality was we discovered the rental car company and MC were not in touch at all in the past 3 months! I gave her the claim number and she said that should make things rolling then.
OK, the following 3 weeks I found myself becoming the Co-ordinator between our claim adjuster and the claim agent of Thrifty - MC insisted it did not receive the repair estimate, Thrifty lady insisted she sent it. I finally asked Thrifty lady to send me a set of papers she claimed faxed to MC. Of all the paper I got, only the Repair Estimate is of any meaning and is new - the rest of paper we already submitted to MC long ago. I finally got lucky one evening well pass 6pm when I called the Nth time, the CSR at MC end was very sympathetic, and she held the phone while I faxed her the Repair Estimate. She came back to confirm she got it from the machine and would make sure it would be on our claim adjuster's desk.... Whew!
The claim adjuster called in a few days - he was ready to settle, just pay the Repair Estimate. I naively asked him to hold off and tried my best to get the Fleet Utilitization Log from Thrifty. Well, we got the Fleet Utilization Log but it was deemed unacceptable by MC as it wasn't specific enough - it only claimed 87% utilization rate during the period ... Thrifty lady told me the CC wont pay it, she has never seen CC pay such other than the damage. In fact she said our claim was the first one she saw CC agree to pay in full the repair estimate ... At the end, we agree to let MC pay the repair estimate - I let them send a check directly to Thrifty Claim Agent at Las Vegas instead to us. Then we negotiated with Thrifty Claim Agent on the balance - the Loss of Usage was $242 and the Admin Fee was $150. At the end we paid a total of $312 by credit card over the phone - that was the condition Thrifty Claim Agent asked in order to reduce the total sum. Of course, there is some shady accounting here... especially Thrifty wont send me a receipt for this portion, claiming the credit card statement will serve as our receipt. They did send a receipt for the MC portion of $2282 after the check was cleared. We feel the Loss of Usage has some ground as to repair such body damage would take 4 to 5 days at least (fill the dimples, smooth them out, wait for them to completely dry, paint one coat, wait for it to dry, another coat, etc etc) The Admin Fee is just another way to squeeze some money. We could, of course, fight such charges and to settle in Small Claim Court. However, that would be a major hassle, and probably would leave a mark on my credit report - I really do not want to risk such and am just glad MC did pick up the major tab ...
Oh, MC sent me a letter informing me what they paid and what they denied - but the denied items were incomplete and no details - that was the oversight by the claim adjuster as the system generated letter spit out what he put in. I called and asked the CSR to leave a message for the adjust to resend a letter showing the details of the denied items as well. I need this as from beginning till end, I have nothing in writing regarding the total claims, only verbal information. MC did resend a letter with the proper information which matched with my note. With this letter, Thrifty's receipt of the Repair Estimate, and my credit card statement showing the $312 balance we paid - I can finally close the file. That was by the end of January, 4 months after filing the claim.
Bottomline, make sure to follow up when you dont hear anything further from both parties - that is not right, something is falling into crack, and if you dont intervene, the consequence may be very unpleasant.
At least now we know the CC coverage does work, once you understand how to make it work. :-)
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