Rental Car Accident: What Should I do If My Rental Car got an Acciden

Points to Remember When Your Car met an Accident

If you are driving a car, then you should always drive it safely. Sometimes, when after driving through a heavily congested road, a driver drives through a national highway or a similar road, he or she tends to drive at breakneck speed. This might cause fatal accidents. If the car that you are driving a rental car, then you are in for a hassle with the car company, car insurance company and much more. Now assuming that the car you are driving is a rental car and it gets into an accident, then you can follow the steps given below:

Rental Car collision: What Should I do If My Rental Car Met an Accident?

Call Help When You Met a Car Accident

The first thing that you should do is to call help. You can dial the ambulance number. You should also scream for help. If the accident area is quite populated, then you will get people to help you out of the car along with your family. These people can guide you to the nearest hospital. This is considering the fact that you did not get to call the ambulance or you got enough help to assist you and your family to the hospital.

Car Rental Accident Insurance: Call Rental Car Insurance Company

Generally, the car of the rental company is insured. You should always ask about the insurance papers from the car rental company. If the car is not insured, then you might have to pay more penalty fees for the damage you caused. Even if the car is insured, certain damages caused might not be included in the insurance package of that car. Therefore, when you are booking the car, take a look at the insurance papers and what kind of damages are covered by that insurance or what is the limit of the accidental insurance offered in the documents.  Therefore, you will be able to assess the damages after the accident. It may so happen that the person who met the accident with the rental car also possesses a private car. In that case, the person might already possess accidental car insurance for his or her car. Then before booking a rental car, the person needs to inquire about the process to link the accidental insurance facilities with the rental car. Therefore, it might happen that the insurance company will completely take care of the damages and the person ending up with the accident might not have to pay anything.

File a Police Report

Before you hand over the damaged car to the car company, you must file a police report. This is essential when the rental car meets an accident. You should also keep a copy of the police report with you. You will have to show it to the car company. The police might require your driving license. Therefore, make sure that you get it back, as you would require that for the insurance claim too.  

Interaction With The Other Affected Party

All this while we were thinking of this problem to be one way. That means the accident has occurred due to the car hitting any boulder or tree or other objects on the road. Now let us think about this problem bilaterally, which is a tad more complex. If there are one or more people affected by this accident, then you need to pay damages to them as well. You have to provide your contact numbers to that other party. If required you need to take them to the hospital and pay the required fee for that. While filing the police report, both parties should be present in front of the police so that the report is written in a correct an unbiased format. If your private car possesses accidental insurance, then you can also provide the insurance contact details to the affected party. Also Read: 7 Helpful Tips For Drivers New to The Roads of Kerala

Contact The Car Company

When you have completed all these processes, inform the car company and give them the updates regarding whatever you have done till now. Assess the damages along with their representatives and negotiate the final price that you have to pay, then and there. One tip here would be to take the car to a mechanic and repair it as much as possible on your own. If your car meets the accident in an urban area, then you will find a lot of local people who would know where you can find a good repairing shop or a mechanic. It is better to do the first-aid before taking the car to the car company. This will decrease your burden to pay for the damages.  Sometimes, people complain that the rental car company has charged them an unnecessary hefty fee for the damages. You can avoid paying such a hefty fee if some of the repairings are done on your own. Say, for example, the taillight is broken. Pay the mechanic to get a new one and fix it on the car. This may cost you much lesser than paying the damage fee to the car company. However, sometimes the car company has certain rules, that the driver will have to pay a certain damage fee, regardless of the fact whether it has been repaired by the driver or not. You would have to go through the terms and conditions very carefully in order to avoid paying twice for the same car.

Keep the Documents Related to The Car

It may so happen that the car that you have taken for the ride already had some dents in it. Then it would be absurd for you to pay for those dents too. In order to avoid confusion, click the pictures of the car before pickup and after dropping the car to the company along with a company representative. This way, they can’t make false allegations about you being responsible for the former dents. Also, do make sure that the information about the former dents is provided in the car check-out form that you would fill up in the company. If it is not there, then make them modify the form, so that you cannot be claimed responsible for the damage that you haven’t done at all.All said and done, try to drive safely and keep the fuel of the car always filled to avoid any surprises or bad experience.