Amtrak AGR World Card and Car Rental Benefits

One of the benefits of using a Mastercard to rent a car is the rental car insurance coverage. Renting a car using this AGR card provides a collision damage waiver that if purchased can add up to $15 per day to the cost of the rental. The way I understand it, this is just additional coverage that covers the deductible amount should you need to file a claim with your own auto insurance company. My insurance broker advises that your auto insurance coverage follows you wherever you are in the USA .THis raises questions on the value of the extra coverage that car rental companies try to sell you..

Has anyone done a detailed analysis on exactly what your credit car insurance benefit really provides?. Every time I ask about it, a different answer comes back..

AFAIK, most personal auto insurance policies cover rental cars that you drive. (Much like if you drive your friend's car.) So, I personally never get it. I figure why pay extra for something that you get anyway.

It's just another (high) profit center for the Rental Car and Insurance Companies.

Similar to the Car dealer prep packs,add on fees ( ever hear about "ADP", additional dealer profit) and extended warranties that salespersons push to suckers, er customers.

If you have a high deductible, or no collision and comprehensive, the liability portion of your auto policy doesn't help because your policy doesn't cover a collision loss to the vehicle you are driving. Also, there are lots of reasons why people don't want to file a claim.

After reading my AGR Master Card coverage, I spoke with my agent (GEICO) about CDW and other things rental agents have tried to push on me, My agent said they act as first payer for claims and then I can go to BOA/AGR for any remaining claims if GEICO hasn't covered everything.

The dirty little secret I learned is most if not all insurance companies will NOT pay for loss of use. Most rental companies will charge YOU a daily rate for each day it is out of "service" for theft or repairs as a 'loss of use" charge.

GEICO recommended Enterprise as being one of the less onerous of the rental car companies for charging loss of use fees. YMMV.

NAVYBLUE

Yup. The AGR Card Insurance is secondary AFAIR. The Insurance from Amex Platinum and Chase Visa Sapphire Reserve are primary. That is they pay first and then your own Auto insurance is secondary.

American Express has offered secondary coverage on its basic cards for years, primary on Platinum. It began offering a primary policy for a single fee ($24?) on its basic cards, not cheap for a short rental, obviously the longer the rental the better the deal. I think the program ended a year or two ago.

The United Explorer Card (Chase) is another one with primary coverage.

Some of the credit card coverages have exclusions. A common one is that coverage excludes damage that occurs on unpaved roads. In some parts of the country, that excludes a lot of roads - roads that you may have to use to get where you need to go.

I often travel to an area where getting dents and dings from everyday driving is pretty common, particularly in the winter and in sugar beet harvest season. Sugar beets are about the size and weight of softballs, and in harvest season they are transported in open trucks piled as high as they can get them. Getting hitting by one of those that just fell off a truck at 65mph right in front of you is going to do some damage. For short rentals (a couple of days), I just hold my nose and get the LDW coverage. Then, if something happens like a broken windshield or a dented hood, there is no aggravation. If you live in eastern Montana and don't have a cracked windshield, you either don't drive much, or you have not lived there very long.

There are areas of the country where you can get a "hailstorm rider". I was getting ready to return a car in Denver a couple of years ago when golf balls started coming down. I got under a gas station canopy real fast! Never even dawned on me till I saw it.

I can give a real-life example from last year. I have the pay-version of the AGR Mastercard and I have full coverage on my personal vehicle with a $500 deductible. I used the AGR card for a one-day rental from Enterprise and declined all Enterprise coverages. While I had the vehicle, it was struck by another vehicle while my rental was parked. (At least, that's what I assume happened...the other vehicle left the scene without leaving a note). The damage was relatively minor, but of course I was on the hook for it as far as Enterprise was concerned.

I received a bill from Enterprise for approximately $850. Mastercard cut me a check for $500 (all I had to do was upload the Enterprise bill and my personal insurance policy to their website). Upon talking with my personal insurer, I determined that having them pay the $350 balance would have a detrimental effect on my future insurance premiums that would exceed the short-term benefit of having them pay the $350, though that's really a separate conversation. That said...

NAVYBLUE said:

GEICO recommended Enterprise as being one of the less onerous of the rental car companies for charging loss of use fees. YMMV.

Click to expand...

...I can't speak to what other rental car companies do as far as loss-of-use, but IME Enterprise should win no accolades. According to Enterprise, my damaged rental was in the repair shop for 12.8 hours (that seemed accurate). But here's how Enterprise calculated the loss of use fees. I had paid $29 (before taxes) for my one-day rental. So that's what Enterprise used as a baseline fee. Since 12.8 hours is effectively one business day, you might think that Enterprise would charge $29 for loss of use.

But no.

Enterprise calculated that since they charge for a full rental day once you pass the 4-hour mark, then they could have rented "my" car out multiple times while it was in the shop. Specifically, they could have rented it out 12.8/4 times. So they multiplied $29 by 12.8/4 for a total of $92.80 in loss of use charges.

That total isn't all that onerous, but you can do the math and figure that if you had a major incident requiring a car to be in the shop for, say, 40 hours, and you had rented that car for $50 a day, then all of a sudden you're looking at $500 in loss of use charges. So like I said, I'm not sure how other companies calculate it, but Enterprise sure isn't doing their customers any favors.

Although when I wrote Enterprise a letter asking them to show their reservation list for the day my car was in the shop, so that I could be satisfied that there was indeed enough demand that the car was needed for multiple rentals, they waived the loss of use fee entirely.