Renting a car in California question

[Guybrush]

Last week I rented a car from Fox Rent-A-Car in Santa Ana. i don't have auto insurance, so i called my credit card company the day before, who said they would be my primary insurer if I rented a car using their card.

So i go into the rental place, and the guy asks me if I want to buy their "RLP" insurance at 12.99 extra/day. I told him no, that my credit card covered everything. Then he asked me for proof of my auto insurance. i told him I didn't have any, then he said I HAD to buy their RLP. I insisted my auto insurance covered everything, but then he said that in California, there was an extra thing that my insurance didn't cover (he said my credit card would only cover my personal liability, or something). I'm not from California so it threw me for a loop. Basically he wouldn't let me rent the car unless I paid extra for the insurance, which I ended up doing.

I suspected something was weird cause I ended up renting at Enterprise the next day. They didn't ask me about any of that, which made me suspicious about Fox, so I did a little searching and found that these rental car people don't know what the policies of our credit cards are and will say whatever to get you to rent the extra insurance.

Did I get ripped off? Or should I have bought Enterprise's insurance? I've rented cars before, and no one's ever asked me for physical proof of insurance.

 

[notfred]

You should have just rented from enterprise in the first place.

Fox may very well have a policy that says they can't rent to you unless you either buy their insurance or show them an insurance policy.

 

[conjur]

You don't carry an insurance card on you?

 

[Toasthead]

Originally posted by: conjur
You don't carry an insurance card on you?

Its kind of hard to do that when he DOESNT HAVE insurance

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: Guybrush
Last week I rented a car from Fox Rent-A-Car in Santa Ana. i don't have auto insurance, so i called my credit card company the day before, who said they would be my primary insurer if I rented a car using their card.

So i go into the rental place, and the guy asks me if I want to buy their "RLP" insurance at 12.99 extra/day. I told him no, that my credit card covered everything. Then he asked me for proof of my auto insurance. i told him I didn't have any, then he said I HAD to buy their RLP. I insisted my auto insurance covered everything, but then he said that in California, there was an extra thing that my insurance didn't cover (he said my credit card would only cover my personal liability, or something). I'm not from California so it threw me for a loop. Basically he wouldn't let me rent the car unless I paid extra for the insurance, which I ended up doing.

I suspected something was weird cause I ended up renting at Enterprise the next day. They didn't ask me about any of that, which made me suspicious about Fox, so I did a little searching and found that these rental car people don't know what the policies of our credit cards are and will say whatever to get you to rent the extra insurance.

Did I get ripped off? Or should I have bought Enterprise's insurance? I've rented cars before, and no one's ever asked me for physical proof of insurance.

I rented a car in LA and drove down to Laguna Beach. no problem with telling them to suck on their insurance

 

[stan394]

Rental car insurance always gives me a headache.

Before I have my own insurance, I am always confused. The rental car company is always trying to get you to buy their insurance whereas you always heard from friends with vague info like 'your credit card should cover it' (what's 'it' exactly? damnit!). Like OP pointed out, different rental car company may have different policy and different credit card may cover different thing. Different states throw another dimension of complexity into the picture. So more than likely, I ended up paying the rental car insurance just to save my a$$ when something bad happens. And when I don't have my own insurance, that's usually when i was younger and have less driving experience so I guess that's a good thing.

once i have my own insurance policy, i called the insurance company and verified that my policy will extend to the rental car as well and i never paid the rental car company for insurance again.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Toasthead

Originally posted by: conjur
You don't carry an insurance card on you?

Its kind of hard to do that when he DOESNT HAVE insurance

I saw this part:

I insisted my auto insurance covered everything,

How can one not have auto insurance but insist it covers everything?

And, how can one DRIVE w/o insurance? Well, one can but it's quite illegal and I'd love to smack anyone in the face who does so (me being the victim of two accidents where the other party had no insurance)

 

[Guybrush]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Toasthead

Originally posted by: conjur
You don't carry an insurance card on you?

Its kind of hard to do that when he DOESNT HAVE insurance

I saw this part:

I insisted my auto insurance covered everything,

How can one not have auto insurance but insist it covers everything?




Sorry, what I meant was, the portion of the auto insurance my credit card said they'd cover.

I can appreciate the up-selling technique as much as the next guy, and I got it from Enterprise too ("We really REALLY recommend you get this added insurance"), but I just felt Fox flat-out lied to me about requiring it. So no more Fox from now on.

 

[Koenigsegg]

I'm confused.

 

[thomsbrain]

i have had people really pressure me to buy the insurance, but i just tell them i am covered by both my credit card and auto insurance and if they don't want to rent me a car, i'll take my buisness elsewhere.