abcx

So Hertz, like all other rental car agencies, doesn't provide any liability coverage in CA. But the USAA rental page says the following. Does anyone know if a Hertz rental in CA will be covered up to these limits if using the USAA CDP? Also, this coverage would apply to someone who has just signed up on the USAA website but has not bought a insurance product or something else sold by them? The Hertz website is not helpful on the matter.

jackal

My understanding has always been that yes, the insurance benefits included in the USAA CDP will carry over to California and will be primary as described.

As for whether it will be active for a "non-full" USAA member...harder to say. I do know that Hertz/USAA are starting to put some infrastructure in place to restrict benefits to "full" USAA members. For example, on the USAA page describing Hertz benefits, it now says "Waiver of underage driver fee is limited to USAA insurance eligible members only." I don't know how well they can enforce that at this time, but I'd be a little more cautious about relying completely on the USAA CDP for coverage without some kind of backup in case a claim does eventually get denied.

manacit

I've done a lot of digging around the website to find out, and so far the only direct reference I've seen to liability coverage has been that paragraph - the rest is mostly boilerplate jargon about what is included by default and what isn't.

This has left me to believe that USAA does provide a small amount of liability coverage in CA.

I _don't_ think this applies to people who have signed up with USAA but aren't 'insurance eligible' (which is their way of differentiating between a banking-only and full membership). I would be very very very careful about relying on it.

abcx

This is my impression also. I couldn't find anything and the very knowledgeable representative at the Hertz USAA number didn't know anything either. I did rent using the USAA CDP but ended up getting SLI because I wanted higher limits and don't have car insurance - for reference, the contract without SLI did not say anything about primary liability coverage up to any limit.

manacit

I'm a bit bummed that nobody at the Hertz USAA number knew anything, I'm not surprised that the printed documentation isn't right, I wouldn't trust that as far as I could throw it.

I also don't have a car insurance policy, I've been meaning to call USAA about a non-owners policy so that I'm covered when I rent outside of work.

abcx

I'm not full USAA member eligible, but I called around to get quotes (no other way - websites won't quote you) for non owners policies and realized I don't rent enough to make those worth it relative to paying $15-20/day for SLI. SLI also has higher coverage limits (which I need).

Traveler's and AAA were the cheapest. I guess you could get it for the month/period you need and then cancel though I think technically you aren't supposed to do that and they can cut you off if you do it many times.

EDIT: It is kind of ridiculous that my rental rate was $75/wk and SLI alone was nearly 1.5x that. What a racket!

guv1976

If you can rent from participating Avis/Budget locations, you can get a small amount of primary liability insurance (and a $5,000 cap on responsibility for damage to the rental car itself) by joining AARP and using the AARP discount code on the booking. Even if you're under 50, you can join AARP as an "Associate Member" by calling AARP directly.

But if you do not own a car and want substantial liability coverage, you're either looking at a non-owned-auto liability policy, or the SLI that the rental company offers.

manacit

I'm in the precarious position of being under 25, which means I need to use the USAA discount code, or I end up paying a bunch of underage fees in the USA . Fortunately, the USAA discounts and other benefits (increased insurance, free addl. drivers who are USAA members, etc) have been more than enough to be worth it, but it ends up being limited.

For what it's worth, I just called USAA to inquire about a non-owners policy. For 5,000 miles a year I got quoted ~$45/m with $100k/pp $300k max personal liability insurance, as well as roughly the same (I think a bit lower) property + in/under insured driver insurance. I skipped out on the extra medical insurance.

Not the worst (esp for a 24 y/o male), and they indicated it'd probably go down after 6 months once I had an 'insurance history' (what a racket).

That's what you get for being young and living in NYC car-free though.. Probably better to pay the $300 versus getting sued for six figures because I dented someone's Maserati.

I might call up AAA or Travelers at some point, though I'm not sure it'd be much cheaper?

jackal

It wouldn't, because the system is not programmed to display any coverage included in a CDP. It's reasonably rare that a CDP does include coverage; only the very largest corporate accounts (or accounts where the person setting it up intentionally chose a higher rate plan that includes coverage) have coverage benefits, and the only evidence of that coverage is in the terms of the corporate program or on an information screen rental agents have access to but that does not print out on the contract itself.

SixAlpha

This is my impression as well. When I signed into my USAA account and did a little more digging in the car rental benefits section, I found this:

"Liability coverage on your policy extends to your use of non-owned cars, pickups as well as moving vans for personal use."

The way I read it, that sounds an awful lot like USAA is saying that liability is included, but only if you already have an insurance policy through them.

guv1976

I would have gotten a quote from a Travelers agent before signing up with USAA. Rates can vary widely based on age and location, but Travelers seems to offer very reasonable rates on these types of policies. (I currently pay about $70 per year with Travelers for $500K/$500K/$200K coverage on a non-owned-auto policy. But I am much older than you, and live in upstate New York. When I lived in NYC, I think I was paying $160/year with Travelers.)

manacit

Wow! that's great! I'll call up either way - I can easily cancel if needed. I've been loyal to USAA for quite some time, but that's a lot of savings.

guv1976

Note that AAA membership waives the under-25 surcharge with Hertz -- but only when you use the AAA/Hertz CDP code on the rental. You do not have to own a car to join AAA.

Also, keep in mind that non-owned-auto policies issued in NYS automatically provide coverage for rental-car loss or damage, up to the limits of your property-insurance coverage. That can be a mixed blessing, since it means that any "secondary" rental-car coverage you have on your credit card (s) will have little, if any, value.

manacit

I didn't know that! I thought USAA was the only big organization that had a CDP to waive an under-25 fee. I'll have to look into that (though, like I said, the USAA CDP has always been good to me - it also waive the fee on Budget, Avis and Enterprise). Of course, I have no good reason to have an AAA membership aside for this benefit, so I'll probably stick with USAA purely because it costs me nothing (I have banking / renter's insurance through them already).

Fortunately I always rent with my Chase Sapphire Reserve, which has primary coverage which should take the hit before my (new!) non-owners policy.

This is all fantastic information on this thread - I wish somebody had compiled all of this into a blog post or wiki at some point, I think it could answer a lot of questions regarding insurance.

jackal

I do not believe that is related to using the USAA CDP.

Covered amounts are fixed. According to the FAQ:

If this benefit were tied to your insurance policy, those limits wouldn't be static but would fluctuate with the amount of coverage you carried on your personal auto insurance policy. Also, note that it explicitly states that "The primary liability remains with the rental car company." In other words, Hertz is taking on that liability risk, not USAA.

Also, the terms indicate that the USAA CDP benefits are for insurance-eligible customers. They do not specify that you actually must carry USAA insurance--you just need to be eligible for insurance (i.e. a veteran yourself or the child or spouse of a USAA full member). In other words, you cannot just be a banking-only customer--Hertz does not want to provide these benefits to limited members. (As discussed above, though, it remains to be seen whether Hertz has an easy way of actually determining your USAA membership status.)

If you carry USAA auto insurance and rent a car with the USAA CDP, then you would be double-covered: first, you would get primary liability through Hertz from using the USAA CDP, and then you would have secondary coverage from USAA up to the limits of your personal auto insurance policy. Even though it is slightly confusing that both have something to do with USAA, they are two completely different (and unrelated) products.