Accidents happen. I was driving back home from a trip with friends when we got into a crash. Thankfully, I had booked the Hertz car with my Chase Sapphire Preferred® and was able to fully scope out the extent of the card’s Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, which ended up covering the entirety of Hertz’s damage claim.
In this article, I’ll explain how I activated the coverage, my claims process, and what I needed to do to get everything finished.
Sign-up Bonus: 60,000 points
Activating My Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver Coverage
Prior to this incident, I was pretty familiar with the Chase Guide To Benefits, which outlines all the specific details behind the card’s extensive list of benefits. Here’s a direct paragraph from this 44 page document in regards to car rental coverage:
The Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver benefit provides reimbursement for damages caused by theft or collision up to the Actual Cash Value of most rented cars. The Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver acts as primary coverage and covers theft, damage, valid loss-of-use charges imposed and substantiated by the auto rental company, administrative fees, and reasonable and customary towing charges (due to a covered theft or damage) to the nearest qualified repair facility. The Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver covers no other type of loss. For example, in the event of a collision involving Your Rental Vehicle, damage to any other driver’s car,
the injury of anyone, or damage to anything is not covered.
Key things to note here:
- The damage waiver covers only theft, damage, and valid loss-of-use charges
- This waiver acts as primary coverage
- The damage waiver does not cover any other type of loss (e.g. damages to another car)
Additionally, here’s what that massive document says in regards to who’s actually covered:
You are covered when Your name is embossed on an eligible card issued in the United States, and You use Your credit card Account
and/or rewards programs associated with Your Account to initiate and complete Your entire car rental transaction. Only You, as the primary renter of the vehicle, and any additional drivers permitted by the Rental Car Agreement are covered.
This paragraph is particularly important because it emphasizes that you must be the cardholder (name on the card) and you must be the primary renter. Additional drivers are covered if they are listed explicitly and authorized by the car rental company. Furthermore, the entire car rental must be paid with the card.
In my case, since I was the cardholder and primary driver, I paid for the entirety of the Hertz car rental with my card. Based on the specific requirements for activating coverage, I anticipated that I was likely good to go with the car rental.
Immediately After The Accident
Car accidents are never fun, but it’s incredibly important to try and maintain a clear mind so that you can get all the contact information and documentation you need. While we were waiting to chat with highway patrol, I gave Hertz a call to let them know that we had gotten into an accident. The agent on the call helped create a specific case ID in case I needed to exchange the car early.
We then spoke with the police and gave our perspective on what happened. Finally, we made sure to get the contact information of all surrounding parties.
At the end of it all, we left the crash scene with the following:
- Hertz case ID for the crash
- Police report number and police officer number
- Contact & insurance info of all parties involved in the crash
Filing The Claim
I initiated the formalized claims process with Chase about 3 days after the crash. Although I hadn’t gotten the police report nor the damage attestation/damages request letter from Hertz, I wanted to get this request in the system early since I knew this would be a long process.
Chase does not handle the claims themselves. They use a third party system called the eclaimsline/Card Benefits Center to handle all insurance claims. This is a very old, poorly designed website, but I guess it gets the job done. Not sure if I ever have peace of mind when dealing with this site.
In my case, since I was starting a new claim, I clicked “START A CLAIM.” The next page will direct you to give your card number and name to identify your card and its benefits.
After getting through some disclosures, you can then select which claim you want to submit. The collision damage waiver was at the bottom of the page.
After getting through some disclosures, you can then select which claim you want to submit. The collision damage waiver was at the bottom of the page.
Next, expect to fill in a bunch of details about the incident. This is similar to filing any sort of insurance claim, so a lot of the stuff shouldn’t be too out of the blue.
Finally, there’s a documents submission portal where you can add materials like the police report, attestation claim (usually what the car rental company sends you to detail out the damages they’re billing you for), Hertz receipt, and billing statements. The Cards Benefit Service is merely trying to first see if you’re eligible for coverage and to see if there’s anything you did that might make it possible for them to deny your claim.
The Initial Response: We Need More Information
The Cards Benefit Center got back to me in a week or two, but basically told me that they needed more information. Totally fair, given that I didn’t even submit the police report nor the damage attestation claim originally.
Despite the original case I opened with Hertz, I never received any communications from them in regards to the accident. I ended up calling them directly to see what was going on. As it turns out, I was assigned an adjuster, but they never reached out to me, so I didn’t really have any clue what was going on until I called them myself. The adjuster quickly picked up my phone call and asked for some additional details before sending me the estimate of repair + demand letter.
I submitted the documents and waited to hear back.
The Next Response: Some News
After a few more weeks, I saw an email from the Cards Benefit Center. I opened this email rapidly in anticipation of some meh news, but was actually pleasantly surprised:
We approved your recent Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver Benefit claim and issued a payment in the amount of $11,303.48. Thank you for taking advantage of this valuable benefit. The check has been sent to Hertz Corporation but you will receive a copy within 7-10 business days.
Wow, all things considered, that was a relatively simple process. Just required contacting a few people + submitting additional documentation, but everything ended up working out just fine. Receiving this news just simply hammers down the important of credit card auto rental insurance: just one simple accident could have put me out $11,000.
Is The Chase Sapphire Preferred Only Good For Auto Rental Collision Insurance?
Not only does it have a strong welcome offer, it also earns relatively well on a multitude of purchases:
- 3x points on dining, including eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out
- 3x points on online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 3x points on select streaming services
- 2x on other travel purchases
- 1x on all other purchases
You can also transfer your points to partners to book high value travel via Roame or redeem your points via Chase Travel℠ to get 1.25 cents per point in immediate value. This is a great card to have if you’re new to the award travel space.
Sign-up Bonus: 60,000 points
Notably, you also get access to a slew of travel benefits such as:
- Travel and Emergency Assistance Services
- Trip Delay Reimbursement
- Trip Cancellation / Interruption Insurance
- Baggage Delay Insurance
- Lost Luggage Reimbursement
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver
- Travel Accident Insurance
Make sure you have a good understanding of the terms and conditions, as there’s a lot of legalese involved in whether or not your benefits will activate/if you're covered.
Do Other Cards Offer Auto Rental Insurance?
Yes! Typically the most premium travel credit cards out there provide this as a benefit. I’d argue that this benefit can easily cover your annual fee—just look at my specific case. On top of that, these travel credit cards usually come with a variety of credits to help further offset the fee alongside lounge access.
Here are some of our favorite cards that also offer auto rental insurance:
Conclusion
I’m a big fan of travel credit cards partially because of their insurance coverage benefits. Since I had booked my Hertz car rental with my Chase Sapphire Preferred, I was able to get my entire auto rental collision bill covered, independent of my individual liability. This turned out to be a hugely successful effort, as I just needed to communicate with a few of the stakeholders to get the ball rolling. Ensuring you have proper travel insurance on your cards is an incredibly important thing that should not be underrated in the slightest.
