Financial Channel

While my own car was being fixed, I rented a car from Thrifty. I didn't have rental car insurance, so rented with Thrifty on my own, not through my insurance company. While I had the rental car, there was a hail storm that damaged the rental car. I did not take out any of the insurance Thrify offered, so opened a claim with my own insurance company, Farmer's Insurance Group. Upon returning the car, I paid Thrify my deductible and rental charges. Farmer's had already been in touch with them. Thrifty hired a third party to handle the claim for them and is now asking Farmers for 40 days for loss of use of the rental car (about $1300). The Farmer's adjuster told me that Farmer's would settle with Thrifty on the physical damage, but that my policy doesn't cover loss of use. They were giving me a courtesy call basically warning me that I'd be on my own for dealing with the the loss of use issue and that Thrifty may try to collect from me. If they do, I'll have to get hold of the Thrify Rental contract. Is it common to hit up rental car customers for "loss of use"?? Even if I am liable, 40 days for loss of use seems excessive. I can't imagine that it would take that long for the car to be fixed, and I know occupancy rates for rental car companies run lower than 100% -- more in the 70-80% range if they're lucky. If I'm asked to pay, would you recommend getting legal representation to negotiate with Thrifty? How much might this cost me, and where might I look to find competent legal representation for a situation like this.

Is your adjuster attempting to negotiate a settlement which includes the loss of use claim, are they trying to get Thrifty to waive the loss of use claim, or are they stating that they are going to settle only the damage claim and dump the rest on you?

(And yes, the claim of 40 days loss of use seems quite excessive.)

Thanks for your interest. My Farmer's adjuster said that he is going to tell Thrify that they will not cover any "Loss of Use" because that is not covered in my policy. They aren't going to do any negotiation on that. Farmers will settle/negotiate with Thrify on the physical damage only. The call from my Farmer's adjuster was just letting me know that Thrifty was asking for "Loss of Use", Farmer's position, and that Thrify might be contacting me.