Dave Noble

I would start by writing to him directly before incurring fees that you might not recover - would seem hard pushed to try and add solicitor fees before seeing if the person will accept liability and pay up or speak to insurers

Gig103

I have had multiple rentals where my rental (including LDW) got messed up by a counter agent mucking about instead of just handing me a key.

OP, I sympathize and have no advice, I just wanted to chime in because I know it can happen. I am not victim-blaming when I ask this but did you notice it was removed that day and did you try to get it resolved prior to "needing" it? A paper trail might help you. A copy of your original reservation might help too, even though Dave Noble is right that the rental agreement is the formal contract.

Resonant Programmer

Hertz may consider retroactively amending the contract if the request comes from your corporate travel office. I've had LDWs retroactively repriced as a zero-dollar-item after I asked my employer to intervene and demand Hertz follow our preferred travel vendor agreement.

writerguyfl

It's unclear if this was a business trip or you were just using your company's rate for personal use. If this was a business trip, let your company handle everything.

Resonant Programmer gave some good advice. Hopefully you work at a big company that does a lot of business with Hertz. That fact may influence how Hertz handles the problem their employee seems to have created.

Dave Noble

Have you managed to get a car hire company to add LDW after an accident ? There is a difference getting it added prior to any incident

91StealthES

I sympathize with you regarding this.

I recently had an agent remove the LDW that my corporate rate clearly covers. For some reason I looked at the contract when I got home and called to have them correct it and send me an email with the correct contract.

I'm not sure what you can do, unless you have the original rental reservation showing LDW and potentially the fulfilled contract at assumingly the same price without the LDW included. Then you may be able to get some traction with someone. I liked the idea of passing it off to your corporate team, if this was a business rental. If this was a personal rental, typically the business negotiated coverage doesn't apply...at least in my companies policy.

taina2

Tell the at faults insurance company if you don't get $5000 overnighted, you will go to a doctor to treat your anguish and any injury you may have suffered that is now showing up.

Dave Noble

so that the agent can have fun of not just laughing, but putting on speakerphone so that eveyone else can laugh at the OP too?

Often1

This would be a foolish fraud to commit. At best laughable and at worst referred to law enforcement.

jrpallante

It's good to know that Chase will not cover long term rentals. I guess the take away is to trade in the rental car every week or two, so you have multiple short rentals. That way you get a clean car too.

gay

Pay the $5,000 and if you think the other party is at fault, take them to small claims court. If you were at fault without insurance, man up.

garykung

Actually, that is not insurance fraud, but stupidity. Insurers do have the right to refuse claims when deemed necessary.

An uncovered claim does not equate to insurance fraud.

Dave Noble

To threaten to claim fake injuries to increase the payout, sounds like extortion - actually going ahead with it would be fraudulent

Anyway - hopefully the OP is not so stupid as to try that

jmastron

My first question is whether this was an "official company business" or personal "leisure" rental, both when reserved and what it actually was. That really determines what the next steps are here. At my company for business rentals there is liability and loss coverage; we are allowed to use the corporate rate for personal rentals but there is no LDW or liability coverage.

1) If it was an offficial business rental then I agree with others that you punt it to the company to handle; they are on the hook either way.

2) If it was a personal rental and LDW is included for free, then continue fighting Hertz using the original reservation; if the agent mistakenly changed your rate to something else (but if they just changed it from business to leisure and that dropped the LDW then see below).

3) If it was a personal rental and turns out no LDW is included, then you really have no choice but to pay, and then sue the other driver since the claim against their insurance was denied. And in the future you really need to have at least liability coverage when you rent -- being considered at fault in an injury crash could make this $5K bill pale in comparison. Imagine if you were held responsible for someone's $500K hospital bill (from a personal example of an injury requiring multiple surgeries)

Fault in an accident isn't always as clear-cut as either party wants to believe, especially without witnesses or pictures.

Kamalaasaa

For future situations: You might want to talk to your insurance agent (or get a recommendation for one) about something like an umbrella liability policy. Caveat: I don’t know whether an umbrella policy would cover you for a car accident if you do not have auto insurance yourself.

But I imagine other FTers are able to weigh in on that, and certainly the insurance agent will know.