hertz rental accident / wreck
 

Well it happened to me. After being five star for 10 yrs or so I had my first accident :mad: in this recent snowstorm. Vehicle ended up in the ditch was not drivable. Had to be towed to a "non hertz" location.

I am trying to reach out and see if other's have gone through the hertz claim process so far. This is what I've done so far...
1. Police report
2. Car towed to lot
3. Filed insurance claim (Master card assist).
4. Notified hertz of the damage and location of the car (it is about 100 miles from the rental return location).
5. Filled out accident crash report for hertz and mailed it in.

Anything I am missing? Hertz says their claims dept will get the vehicle towed for repair. Then what happens...

Many thanks.
:(

I can't speak specifically about Hertz, but my wife had an accident with an Avis car, and we pretty much followed the same steps, except we filled out the Avis form in person at a local location where we got a replacement car.

I filed claims with both my insurance and Amex. It took Avis almost 5 months to get the car evaluated and submit the paperwork to my insurance. The insurance paid less the $500 deductible, and Amex paid that.

So it took a while for everything to happen, but no out of pocket expense and no real problems getting it resolved.

I banged up a car once.
 

For any wreck sounds like you are ok.
Since you had cc, just keep an eye on any claims by Hertz against you.

Especially keep any eye out for the dreaded "lost of rental use" claim.
You cc insurance should fight this, but if for some reason they try this, just remember they have to prove that they had every car rented that day before they can claim your car was not available to rent.

Did your personal auto insurance premium rise because of the accident?

No, but we have had this policy for years, and it was our first accident. I would assume that if we had another in short order, the insurance company would jack our rates up.

Thanks guys.

Something Similar happened to me twice in 2008. The first was a small sender bender in a small town in Michigan US where a car tried to overtake me on the wrong side (right) while I was turning in to a driveway. Hertz car had no damage and the car that ran in to me had some substantial damage. Police took a report and Hertz contacted me a few months alter to get my version of the events. I did not hear back from them after referring them to the police report.

On a more serious note in Dec 2008 I had a some what serious accident with a Hertz car on the NJ Turnpike. Traffic in front of me stopped but the van behind me did not. Car was not drivable. The highway patrol arranged a (mandatory I think) tow, and Hertz organised a paid taxi from the tow compound to JFK (~$200). Hertz also came and picked up the car from the tow compound.

About 7 months later I head from Herz that said the driver at fault (charged by the police over the accident) is refusing to answer correspondence and I had to pay for the damage/costs. Contacted Amex (Amex's insurance provider actually) who offered a legal opinion that Hertz had to chase up the driver at fault.

After multiple faxes, phone calls and emails (not helped by the fact that Hertz was out of the US and Amex and the insurance provider was in Australia) the insurance provider agreed to pay the claim. I had to pay Hertz using my Amex and the insurance provider reimbursed me within 5 days.

My advice to you is to make sure you stay on top of all communication between your insurance provider and Hertz. This is because your contract is with Hertz and Hertz and the Insurance provider may refuse/unwilling to speak to each other directly.

Perhaps you can explain why you were turning right from the left lane? ;)

That's good. My wife had a small (< $500) fender bender in a school parking lot last year which was our first accident ever on our policy (5 years+) and even though we are multi-line policy holders, etc., they still raised our rates.

For exactly this reason, people will often either not bother to file a claim (if it is a single car accident) or, if at fault, offer to pay the other driver's costs out of their own pocket (or just give them some cash on the spot to forget about it). My state has a "safe driver point" system which influences your rates, and an accident gives you "bad" points - which age over something like 4 years. So you can be paying the consequences of filing your small claim for a number of years, not necessarily worth it.

Well I also have high deductibles for similar reasons. And at least for me, over my driving life time I've paid much more for the insurance than I would have paid for replacing a car or two.

(As for liability and stuff, I max that out with high coverage, too many lawsuits here).

Once an older guy ran a red light at a pedestrian crossing and trashed my bike. He wasn't moving fast, no one was hurt, and I'd rather he hit my bike than the baby carraige crossing next to me. I would not have cared, it was an old junky bike, if the guy had showed any remorse, asked me if I was OK, or offered to give me a lift or something. Instead he got belligerent about it. So I called 911, and said he was acting like he was going to leave the scene (true). Within moments (we were just down the street from police headquarters) they had him boxed in with 3 squad cars. Didn't charge him, as the witnesses had left. But at that point I filed the police report and a claim with his insurance company. They gave me the $500 I asked to get a new bike. I am sure that old codger paid thousands in surcharges over the years. Too bad, his bad attitude, karma as they say. (sorry for the OT rambling could not resist)

OP, it's not clear in your intial post if you did this or not, if you have your own auto insurance collision policy you need to file a claim with them unless your credit card provides primary rental car coverage (which is not typical, the two biggest exceptions being Diners Club cards and the supplemental AMEX insurance where you pay a per rental fee).
A rental car company does not have to prove they had every car rented to be entitled to loss of use.

It was a rental for work. Company is covered as primary on master card assist program.

thx.

I was turning right from the right lane. It was a single lane (each way) road and I was going quite slowly looking for the driveway. The other car decided to overtake me on the right/gravel as (I assume) I was going slowly and there was oncoming traffic on the left.