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Collision Damage Waiver Insurance For Car Rentals – I’m sure many of you have heard that credit cards provide collision damage waiver coverage when you rent a car. Some of you may experience unpleasant situations when you need to use them. I believe applying for a claim is a confusing process. Do you pay compensation to the rental company? Get reimbursed by the credit card company later? What if the amount is too much to pay out of pocket?
Don’t worry, I recently had the unfortunate need to file a claim with Chase for a collision damage waiver on a rental. Read on to understand the process to make sure you don’t end up paying for your own damages.
Collision Damage Waiver Insurance For Car Rentals
On a recent trip to Utah I chipped a small rock out of nowhere and hit the windshield of my rental car. Thankfully no major harm was done to us. However, the front glass is left with a small hole shown below. Luckily I rented with my Chase Sapphire Reserve(CSR) card. As mentioned, I have declined Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) coverage from Enterprise and paid for it using CSR. So, when this happens I am most relaxed knowing that CSR will be able to reimburse me for any damages. I called to make sure what the process was. I just wanted to make this guide for anyone who rents using a CSR or chase premium card and ends up having to file a claim:
Chase Auto Rental Cdw; Questions & Experiences [consolidated]
Chase as part of the cardholder benefits provides cdw coverage on rental cars. They cover up to 75000 USD in damages for theft or collision in the rental car. All you have to do is decline the CDW coverage provided by the rental company and pay the full rental using your chase card.
Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) and Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) offer the ultimate Collision Damage Waiver. It means that you can only go through them to claim for insurance if necessary. Most other Chase, Discover and Amex cards provide secondary CDW coverage. That means, you also need to get your car insurance provider involved first and then your credit card provider can step in to cover the rest of the bill.
Chase outsources the claims process to a company called eclaimsline. Go to the following website: https://www.eclaimsline.com/ start a claim:
We will choose the Collision Damage Waiver since we are trying to make a claim for the car rental incident. Enter your address and personal information on the next screen:
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Give details about the incident, the rental car and if you have paid at the counter, then choose yourself as a benefit payee. You can change this later. Upload the required documents on the next screen. You can also send some documents later:
After you hit submit, you should be asked to confirm your claim. You should also get an email from the site with details.
The next step is when returning the vehicle to decide whether to pay for the damages yourself or not. In the case of minor damage (317 $) I paid when returning the car. But if the damage is large, it may not be possible to pay out of your pocket. In such cases, make sure that the Enterprise / rental company knows that you are starting a claim with eclaimsline. You may have to pay the deductible that the car rental has been set depending on the type of damage. They may ask to hold the card for damages. This depends and varies from rental agency to agency. But don’t worry, take your receipts and any documents you paid with.
Get as much documentation as possible. Things like the original rental agreement showing you a collision damage waiver. Item receipts for any payments you make. Photos of the damage. Report it to the police if you have it. Incident reports from car rental companies. I even have this list in one of the pictures above. In addition, the statement website also asks for a copy of your card statement with the payment fee. Upload all documents to the claim website against your claim.
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Now that you have uploaded all the documents, the ball is in the claims website’s court. Usually you get a response after 5-7 days. But this is when I realized that there are 2 more documents that the eclaimsline website needs to complete the claim. Corrected demand letter and bill/estimate. According to this estimate they paid. I understand that the car rental company has to send a letter of demand and guess this. But getting this form rental company is easier said than done.
I keep getting reminder emails from the eclaimsline website asking me to send a request letter and estimate. I had to call Enterprise a few times but they seemed clueless. All it says is that it will take at least 30 days to process the request. At this point I kind of felt taken for a ride when I paid for my own damages. And did not get an appropriate response to requests and estimates.
I finally got an email from the company saying the claim has been processed and my case is closed. It said no payment was required from my side as I had already paid the compensation. But actually I had to call the company again to remind them to send a demand letter and guess because I still need the money. I finally received the request and estimated the Enterprise form via email. To my surprise, I expected and estimated only for 185 $ while I have paid 317 $ for damage when returning. When I called the company again, I found that the original cost was actually deductible. In the end they came back to 117$ via check and I had to submit another request and estimate (185$) to the eclaimsline website as part of the collision damage collection claim process.
After about a week of sending a request letter and estimate, I got an eclaimsline email form asking for electronic deposit information for a refund of 185$. The process lasts 75 days from the day of the incident until we get the money back.
Rental Car Insurance
Check out the step-by-step process for filing a claim for collision damage benefits on a car rental using a Chase credit card. Click to Tweet
As I mentioned in another article, the Chase Sapphire Reserve is one of my favorite cards despite the 450$ annual fee. The benefits you get are just too good for the price. Having saved a lot of money on previous trips by not having to pay for insurance, I have already earned the fee. This time I even used the claims process and was able to get my money back from Chase within 2-3 months of the incident. Here’s a quick list of things to do in case something happens (Or in general to make sure you’re prepared for any situation):
This is just a general guide and account of my experience when claiming rental car damage. I got a collision damage waiver through my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. But I think the general process for other major coverage cards is the same. The small things or steps in the process can vary from person to person and the basics happen. But I believe this account will be useful for everyone. Go to your respective credit card provider’s website to make sure you understand all the requirements for using their collision damage exclusion coverage.
I’m just a programmer by day and want to be financially independent. Learning and sharing knowledge is what I feel will help me in this FI journey and that is why I created this blog. This post contains references to products from one or more advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on a link to the product. The content on this page is accurate as of the date of posting; However, some of these offers may have expired. For more information check out the Advertising Disclosure.
Insure Your Rental Car For Less
It may be buried beneath the allure of big points bonuses and travel perks, but the rental car insurance you get on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® is one of the best benefits.
The coverage you get from charging rentals to your Sapphire card is some of the best rental car insurance you can get from a credit card. It covers any damage to your rental and provides the cardholder with primary car rental insurance. And that generally means you can bypass the rental car company’s supplemental policy — and even use your own policy to file a claim if the worst happens.
However, rental car insurance can be complicated. So, we’ve broken it down to help you understand what you’re getting from Chase car insurance benefits.
The Chase Sapphire card isn’t the only one
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