[Music]
hi everybody Matt Clement here welcome
to this week's edition of whiteboard
Wednesday where we tackle real-life
issues that our clients face and we
answer questions of every different
people they call our office now this
week we're going to be talking about
rental car insurance and if you need it
and when you rent a car
we've all been there before you find
yourself coming in up up a flight you're
at the rental car companies you know
building an off site and there's a big
line and you finally get to the front
and the rental agent pushing paper in
front of you she's done it a million
times you know there's things you
initial and sign and all this
information kind of coming and going
and the agent begins to make you feel
like you need this insurance because you
don't understand your coverage and you
might not be covered for all these
things in your shop feeling insecure and
oftentimes you fall for it and the
assistant show that 30% of the time
people do in fact buy this rental car
insurance and the fact of the matter is
is most of it it's totally redundant
you're covered anyway you do not need it
you're not going to be able to really
benefit from it after you purchase or
does it but you're going to spend an arm
and a leg doing it so I created this
label Wednesday about the rental car
insurance because I wanted people to
feel a little bit more confident about
what they're doing they're renting a car
whether or not they need this stuff and
have them better understand kind of what
it is they're being offered so let's get
into it
rental insurance you know is offered in
four types of in secret the first one is
lock damage waiver and this covers you
for crashes two vehicles theft of the
vehicle that you're renting and
vandalism to the vehicle that you're
renting you're right to think that your
own insurance will cover you for this
your personal auto it certainly will so
long as you have both collision and
comprehensive coverage collision covers
the damage to the vehicles in a crash
and comprehensive covers the other ways
that your vehicle could be harmed at a
fire fast vandalism tree falls on it
that type of thing
so if you do in fact have collision and
comprehensive your own personal auto
policy will cover you
for what they're offering you for about
$20 a day it's not cheap you know you go
away for a long weekend you can spend
almost $100 just getting the lost damage
whatever that you probably don't need
you know the only kind of downside to
using your own policy is that there's a
deductible 500 or a thousand bucks is
pretty typical so you should way that
you know when you're making a decision
about whether or not you want to
purchase it and then loss of use is
another initiative raised because a loss
of use is the amount of money that means
the rental company loses by not being
able to put that particular vehicle out
on the road so if it's being repaired
because you've damaged it they're going
to be losing profit and they will charge
you for that and you'll be responsible
for it
most good personal auto policies will
cover you for that but it's time to
check in to because you can run you know
$1,000 tab pretty quick on a car that
rents for 50 or 60 bucks a day so you
might want to look into that obviously
with the rental damage waiver this is
included the other type of insurance
that is diffic offered is liability
insurance now liability insurance is
required by California law so you need
to have to produce proof that you have
your own a personal liability coverage
or you have to buy their okay so this
one's pretty much a no-brainer if you
have your own personal policy obviously
you're gonna have liability I don't
really think you need to go purchase
theirs I mean their coverage is a
million bucks which is you know that's
pretty big policy but you know if you're
so into having a million dollars if I
raise your own rates and your own
coverage limits rather of your insurance
policies not be buying bears this
typically runs about ten dollars a day
so you know also not very cheap when you
you know multiply times the number of
days that you rent liability insurance
of course covers damages that you do to
other people to their vehicles to
injuries that you might cause I'm a
personal injury lawyer
I represent folks that are harmed by
people that in fact have liability
coverage because you know they've ran a
light or you know we're texting and
driving or something like that and they
cause injuries and so this type of thing
will cover you for that which is you
know obviously a positive one thing I do
want to draw attention to here is that
both of these things if you're planning
on using your own personal auto policy
it won't cover you if you're doing
business so when you're traveling you
rent a car if you're there for business
your own personal auto policy probably
won't cover you you might not know that
and may be too late once you realize it
doesn't I your claim because you're
doing business all right and so be
really mindful of what the purpose of
your trip is and if it's
business-related
assume that the insurance company is
going to find out and definitely need to
buy all this insurance and expense it or
write it off it's your business or you
know speak to somebody at your at your
work and make sure that you're covered
by the businesses company auto policy
this is a really easy trap to fall into
if you're traveling traveling for
personal reasons great no problem but if
you're traveling for business reasons
keep this in mind the third type of
insurance that software buy rental
company is personal accident insurance
basically this is insurance that pays
your medical bills if you're involved in
an accident you're injured it covers
your passengers as well it's really kind
of like health insurance so if you have
health insurance you might be picking
yourself white on you buy this you know
I already have somebody's going to pay
my medical bills and you're probably
right so if you have decent health
insurance probably don't need this
another really smart angle is through
the Med pay provision of your own auto
policy most people's auto insurance has
about $5,000 sometimes as much as
$25,000 and your own auto insurance
company will pay for your medical bills
no questions asked faults not important
if you present them with the bills and
so this is a way to get your medical
bills covered
the fourth type of insurance that rental
car companies offers personal effects
insurance so it can protect your items
your computer your your cell phone your
your your camera and your GPS and so you
know if something gets stolen don't
cover it this one's about five bucks a
day and I should mention that so does
this personal accident sure it's also
about five bucks a day so for five bucks
a day though basically you know cover
your immunity gets stolen I mean seems
pretty unlikely your stuffs gonna get
stolen you should probably consider what
it is you're traveling with if you've
got expensive computers and you know
equipment or something you might want to
get this but otherwise probably
something you could pass on for five
hours a day you know it does that up the
the other thing is if you have
homeowners or renters insurance
it'll cover you for this type of thing
there's the deductible obviously but if
you know you rent a car and you're not
traveling for a business reason and
somebody breaks into and steal stuff
your own renters or homeowners insurance
will cover you now another thing another
idea that floats around is well I have a
credit card and I've heard that credit
cards pay for rental insurance for you
know they cover you some stuff like this
and that's partially true it's important
to note that it only covers you though
if you actually use that particular card
so you know just having an NX Carter
Visa card or something doesn't mean that
something you have insurance you
actually have to use that card for this
particular transaction and then they
will cover you with some exceptions
first things first is the secondary
coverage so it's not really you know
primary covers is going to protect you a
lot it just kind of fills in the whole
it stands behind anything you purchase
from the rental car company it stands
behind your personal auto policy and
will cover you but only if it has to so
it's not the type of thing that's great
and you are gonna have to bring your own
a claim against your personal auto
insurance which may raise your rates so
this won't protect you from that and
there's some limitations to it like I
said it's not the best it will cover you
for collision and loss of use which is
good it's usually maxed out the twenty
five to fifty
but so you know so a decent amount of
coverage but there are some limits the
only cover you for short-term rentals
this credit card insurance is what if
you rent a car for a month or two months
or you know I have a car you know while
yours has been fixed or something once
you go over the fifteen or thirty days
then it nullifies it so long-term
rentals are no good with credit card
insurance it does not cover you for
liability it does not cover you for any
of you medical bills and it doesn't
cover you training you property loss
either so you know you're going to want
to look into you know the fine print of
your credit card statement or call the
company and ask them which coverage is
if you know you're going to be traveling
there's lots of little exceptions to it
you can't have an expensive car if
you've got a sports car no coverage if
you've got a nice big SUV no coverage
there's a lot of different things like
that so you're going to want to kind of
know what you're doing if you're going
to rely on this type of thing and then
the last thing that sometimes people do
is they buy the travel insurance and if
you find flights out - something like
that you've probably seen travel
insurance and actually travel insurance
is the worst idea if you're kind of
someone that doesn't have a car
uninsured or something like that it says
this primary team you know primary to
your personal auto policy which is great
I mean you don't have to bring your own
claim to your policy so it won't raise
your rates that's a good thing it only
covers you for collision and loss of use
and it's certainly much cheaper than
buying it at the counter from the rental
insurance the rental car company rather
so if you kind of think ahead you can
save some money and get the same
coverage so you know this is kind of how
it all works you know at the end of the
day I think my advice would be if you
are well insured if you have a good auto
policy and good health insurance then
you don't need this stuff alright you
know all this money is going to be put
away and you could spend forty dollars a
day you know buying insurance that you
don't need because somebody made you
feel insecure when you're renting the
car those people by the way make a
commission when you buy the insurance
from them so it's a sales thing and it's
probably really waste of your money and
if you're well insured then I definitely
recommend you don't buy any of this
stuff
confidence they know thank you know
you're covered and if you don't have an
auto policy and you're kind of you know
relatively uninsured because you don't
have a car if you don't have you know a
lot of assets what I recommend is
obviously if you're in a car you need
the liability coverage go karting for a
million bucks that's great and then make
sure you use a credit card and it will
cover you for the collision and loss so
you know you're going to have to buy
this for ten dollars a day and then you
have the credit card which you don't pay
anything extra for that will cover you
for all the damages that you do so
that's kind of my recommendation about
how to approach it you know if you're
going to be having with really expensive
item consider the personal effects if
you're not it's just normal you know
travel with normal stuff pass on this if
you have health insurance I recommend
you pass on this and you know that will
at least leave you not wasting your
money so that's the end you know those
are the issues that they're going to
face as the rental counter if you have
any questions about this I'm happy to
answer them if you have any questions at
all about anything related to personal
injury matters I'm also happy to answer
those questions I appreciate you
watching I hope you learned something
and I will see you next week on
whiteboard Wednesday