In article , NOPSAMmm2005
@bigfoot.com says...
On 1 May 2007 10:47:23 -0700, wrote:

On May 1, 12:09 pm, mm wrote:

The rental guy tried to sell her INSURANCE but she said she was
covered by her own insurance, but he said not for LOSS OF USE. What
does that mean, she can't use the rental car! Don't they just give
you another one if you break the first one?

That means that if she wrecks the car, or it's stolen, the rental
company is entitled
to compensation for the "loss of use", while the car is gone or being
repaired.
They can't rent out and earn money for what they don't have.

That makes sense, but I've never heard of it before. So if they
normally get 25 dollars a day for the car, is that what they bill
someone for loss of use? Even though the 25 dollars is accompanied by
costs they don't incur when they don't rent the car?

They will typically bill loss of use at their standard published rate
for the car, which is sort of like the standard published price for an
airline ticket -- what you pay if you can't qualify for any discounts
and you need it right now. Wouldn't be surprised if it's double the
rate your friend actually paid for using the car.

Do they bill for just the time it takes to fix the car, one day for a
dented fender, or do companies try to pad that?

They bill for the time that it's not available to rent out, which could
include delays while waiting to get it into the shop, waiting for parts,
time for paint to cure, etc. (With no effort to pad the claim, my
wife's car was off the road for eleven days to replace an outside mirror
that got knocked off on vacation.)

And the customer owes this only if the accident is his fault?

No, the customer owes it if the car isn't returned in rentable condition
at the time it is supposed to be returned. Such as being stranded in a
rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula after a flood took out a road.
(Google that one for an extreme case, the car was out of service for
*months*!)

There may be other responsible parties to collect from depending on the
circumstances, but the *customer* agrees to the loss-of-use charge in
the rental contract.

It seems like this would be a bad deal for someone who has his own
insurance that will pay for most of the costs anyhow. Rather than pay
full insurance price, he should be a self-insurer forthe loss of use
charge and pay it out of his poeket.

Is this some charge they came up with recently when too many people
used their own insurance when renting?

No, it's been around for a long time, as an alternative to going to
collections with customers who put a rental car in the shop for six
weeks only to discover their insurance doesn't cover $2000+ in loss-of-
use charges.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Updated Infrared Photography Gallery:
http://www.phred.org/~josh/photo/ir.html