For years I’ve declined the insurance coverage offered by rental car companies. It isn’t because I feel they’re gouging me for something bogus rather my own auto insurance (State Farm) tells me that rental car incidents are fully covered in my policy.

Just to be sure I call my agent before any trips and reconfirm this to be true. Well, it’s not, and I learned it the hard way.

Last July a tree fell on my Thirfty rental car due to a storm in southeastern Pennsylvania. To make a long story short, Thrifty gave me a replacement vehicle and State Farm handled all of the repairs to the vehicle. I was out $0 and very happy.

It was not to last.

A few months later I received a phone call from Thrifty seeking payment for items my insurance didn’t cover. My first thought was how crooked of Thrifty until I called back and got a glimpse at the underbelly of the rental car industry.

When a vehicle is involved in an accident it’s off the road for a couple of weeks and can’t be rented. Thus ushers in the concept of “loss of use” followed quickly by “administrative fees” the latter being a fancy term to cover photocopies and typing on keyboards.

It turns out that local law dictates what rental car companies can charge for Loss of Use and Admin Fees. In my case, Pennsylvania at the time, allows both. After some phone calls I learned that State Farm covers neither - ever.

How much was Thrifty seeking? $450. I had already spent over $300 to rent the car. I kept my cool and talked down the fees to $225 realizing I had no (apparent) legal way out of it.

Thrifty has every right to seek the Loss of Use fee and I accept that. What irks me is my insurance agent’s historical responses that “everything is covered” when it’s clearly not. I shouldn’t have to become an expert in the seedy details of auto insurance just to rent a car.

What I’ve learned is to pay the extra insurance offered by the rental car company because it covers everything: damange, loss of use, admin fees, etc. The $15 a day would have cost me $105 instead of $225 or the whole $450 had I not negotiated.

Chances are there will be no rental car accidents in my future to justify the added insurance but I’ll gladly pay the fee to avoid future financial surprises.

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