Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Firstly, using a corp code you're not entitled to is neither illegal nor fraudulent. It's up to the rental company to verify eligibility at time of rental, and if they fail to do so, they will have a hard time showing cause after the fact.
It's pretty well established that they can (and often do) ask for verification during the claims process if eligibility isn't clearly obvious.
How that would hold up in a court of law (if it were ever brought to that) is perhaps less clear.
Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Second, unless it's a major corporation that self-insures (and almost none do), it will be an insurance company somewhere who pays the claim - and paying for a bunch of scratches, dents, broken mirrors, etc., is not going to create much heartache - but as I hope all renters know, if you get into a major accident with liability, the rental company will have no insurance for you or just carry the state minimum leaving YOU the driver holding liability for the balance - not the owner of the corp code.
All but the smallest independent rental outfits are self-insured for physical damages to the rental cars. Even mid-sized franchises of the major brands self-insure for damages. LDW is not insurance; the money collected by LDW sales helps to offset the rental company's damage payouts.
Liability insurance is an entirely different situation and is not really related to this topic. That said, you are correct that all but the very largest corporate operations are not self-insured for liability. However, in most states, liability transfers to the renter but on a secondary basis and only to state minimums. A few states provide it primary and California does not provide it at all.
Here's a write-up on liability insurance in the rental industry.
Originally Posted by
bocastephen
This is why I carry a non-owners liability policy and I recommend renters without their own auto policy (which explicitly covers leisure rentals) do the same.
Excellent advice.
Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Most, if not all of these cards will refuse to pay claims if they see LDW on the receipt - and claiming you didn't want it there and were just using a code won't be a persuasive argument.
A definite point. I've never understood
why this is; you'd think the credit card provider would rather have the rental company assume the bulk of the risk and only have to pay out any (much smaller) deductible (if any) or item not covered by LDW (such as towing). Then again, perhaps they want to prevent the rental agency from submitting a claim against the credit card company to reimburse themselves for what they have had to pay out.
An interesting note: this verbiage requiring LDW/CDW to be declined is not present in the American Express Primary Car Rental Protection program terms and conditions. (I was looking for the specific T&C with the explicit purpose of emailing them to ask why this rule is in place only to discover I could not locate that requirement anywhere.) Of course, you do pay $24.95 for that protection with each rental, so it is redundant and a waste to pay with a PCRP-enabled American Express card when you already have existing LDW coverage. It could be worth using as a fall-back, though, if you primarily want to use the corporate code to secure a rate and don't care as much about the LDW; take advantage of the LDW if they honor it but fall back to the Amex if they pursue you for damages.