So this morning on my way to work, a truck threw a stone and put a nice crack in my rental's windshield. My private insurance fully covers rental cars and a new windshield can be popped in quickly at absolute zero cost to me -- no deductible. I've still got several days left on the rental and a glass repair shop can come to me at work, almost same-day. The car would be returned good as new. Anyone know of any reason why I can't handle it this way?

That's probably what I would do. I would just make sure it doesn't count as a claim on your insurance. Check for stickers or tags that might be on there. Of course if they find out, they might make you pay to have it done again. Maybe the installed windshield doesn't meet their standards or something. If you can't tell, I'm super paranoid about all the little stuff like that. I get the eye rolls from my wife every time I get my phone out to video the car before and after. It would drive me nuts waiting to hear back from them about how much they want to charge (repairs, loss of use, etc, etc). That being said, I have zero experience in this department, so maybe someone else will have a different opinion on the matter.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If the car is driveable and the rental company has a nearby location, I would just exchange it for another vehicle, and let the rental company deal with it -- especially if insurance will cover everything.

That's exactly what I ended up doing. There's plenty of insurance to cover the issue and I was out of time and patience to try to deal with it proactively, so I filed a claim with AMEX Premium, exchanged the car, and noted the AMEX claim number and contact phone number on the damage form.