acinchus

We are first time visitors (family with 2 small kids) to Miami and got our Alamo rental car broken into while having dinner in downtown. Rental car back side window was smashed and lost atleast $2500 worth of personal belongings and cameras lost. While I have accepted the fact whats gone is gone, I am trying to prepare for dealing with Alamo, Chase (credit card with secondary CDW coverage) and my insurance company on the vehicle damage. I do have a police report.

1. Just seeking any advise you may have in sequence of actions and what to avoid in dealing with the rental car company (Alamo), the credit card company (Chase) and my auto insurance (Progressive).

2. From the research on web so far, Alamo will bill me for administrative fees for loss of use while their rental car is repaired, and Chase/Progressive will need vehicle fleet log to even consider paying it. I don

3. We are here in Miami Beach till tomorrow and flying out from FLL where we were going to return the car. At this point, I am not too keen on trying to get a replacement car just for a day, but would like to know if Alamo or rental companies require damaged cars to be returned/replaced within 24 hours? On other hand, not looking forward to on having to drive to FLL without a rear side window.

4. While I dont expect any entity will cover loss of my personal belongings, any suggestions are welcome.

Elola

Welcome to FT, albeit not under the best of circumstances.

1. I suggest you call Chase right away (if you haven't already done so) and open a claim with them. Only call Progressive if Chase requires you to also open a claim with your personal auto insurance, I would avoid getting them involved as much as possible to prevent an increase in your premiums. When you return the car you will have to complete an accident report at which point Alamo will then begin their internal claims process. There should be a field on that report to list the information for Chase (claim #, contact info, etc.) if you are able to complete that section you may not even hear from Alamo again.

2. You're pretty much spot on with this, Alamo will pass through a loss of use fee as well as various admin fees related to the repair. These may not be covered by Chase/Progressive so in that case you would be expected to foot that part of the bill.

3. There's nothing that requires you to swap the car, but as you mention, driving around with a broken window is not the most pleasant experience. Plus, if it rains, you're looking at paying for water damage on top of the window.

4. Do you have homeowner's or renter's insurance? Many times those policies cover your belongings outside the home as well.

acinchus

Thanks for the welcome Elola, the FT forums have been very valuable in recent months after I actively started planning travel for the family.

You make a good point about trying first with Chase and seeing how far they go , but wouldnt they right at the beginning ask my primary coverage from my own auto insurance to cover damages from Alamo? Any suggestions on how to position this with Chase/Visa's administrator. Do you have any experience or heard on how others have gone to the credit card admin first, or is this just a logical suggestion?

I am determined to get Alamo to give their fleet records, since other posts have mentioned about that as a pre-requisite before loss of use will be considered for coverage.

Decided to not seek a replacement rental since we pretty much spent time today at the beach right off the hotel and only need car for short drives to dine.

My homeowners policy could cover personal belongings but with a high deductible my rough math shows I will not get anything incremental back from them. Will have to research this further.

Elola

The Chase advice is just to exhaust your options through them before getting your personal insurance involved, my Chase Visa Signature provides primary coverage, even on rentals in the US, so it's worth a shot. Thankfully, I've been lucky enough to get LDW through my employer so the one time my car was broken in to all I had to do was complete an accident report and get a new car.

Regarding the fleet utilization history as a requirement for charging loss of use fees, that's long been a subject of debate on FT, with differing results. My take on it is that the rental industry is highly regulated and as a result all the rental companies have very experienced and thorough legal departments and if it were illegal for them to collect loss of use fees they wouldn't try to impose them in the first place. Whether or not they actually try to collect after being challenged is more a result of their own cost/benefit analysis of the effort it would take to collect the fees rather than their legal ability to collect them if they so choose.