What to do in case of an accident when renting a car
When a car accident occurs, you need to take all the necessary steps which will help you save any unnecessary expenses for the crash, both for you and the company you hired from.
In case of a road traffic accident it is necessary to take action immediately
In case of a road traffic accident with rental car it is necessary to immediately notify the local authorities /for Bulgaria the telephone number is 112/ or the Traffic Police on the respective telephone number.
Once the authorities have come and have done the necessary, you must receive a document certifying what happened on the road and who is responsible for the incident. Any insurance company will ask you all the paper documents from the accident. Recently, there have been introduced some restrictions for registering claims without police protocol or the so-called parking damage.
You can register only two of this kind per year and each one for only 3 damaged elements. That's why you do not have to rely on the option to claim the damage as parking damage. Very often this limit is already exhausted for a month and it is obligatory to submit a document in order to obtain compensation for the respective insurance.
When renting a car it is necessary to be familiar with the terms and conditions of the respective rental car company regarding damage claim and insurance indemnities because the different insurance companies have different terms and conditions.
In case of an insurance event with car rental
The client often pays a small amount for administrative and other costs for registering and filing damage claim. Normally this takes a long time, additional checks of the car are often required, and insurance indemnities are paid approximately 20-30 days after the final closure and documentation of the event.
It is good to know that the damages are two types mainly. One type is called regress damage. This is when the guilty for the incident is the other part and the insurance company files a claim to his insurance. The insurer indemnifies the victim but is granted by the insurance of the guilty one.
In this case, many insurers are willing to write down everything that needs to be replaced and repaired, and they are not impressed by the sums, relying on the fact that they themselves will get that money back from the insurance of the guilty driver.
But this is not the case when you are guilty for the incident. In this case, the insurer cannot indemnify itself and very carefully inspects everything and uses every opportunity to reduce or refuse payment on the incident. Then it is necessary to carefully collect and prepare all the necessary documents to make sure that the necessary insurance indemnity will be obtained.
If there are injured people at the time of the accident, you should immediately call for an ambulance, even before you deal with the other details of the crash.
What to do if the incident occurs in a parking lot?
Many customers think that they can tell the car rental company that this is the case, in order to avoid the longer procedure when calling the Police and writing of protocols for that. Employees in car rental companies are very often well-prepared and similar situations happen often upon car return.
You should know that an experienced employee can immediately estimate what has actually happened when he checks the car. You would hardly mislead an experienced employee with ridiculous explanations. That way, you can get unnecessary repair costs and costs for lost benefits.
Repairs of new cars are quite expensive and the reason for this is that often no alternative spare parts for the new models exist, and the prices for the paint has recently been risen, especially for the non-standard colors of a car.
That's why when you rent a car you have to follow the road traffic law and comply with the requirements of the rental company, which on his turn, complies with the requirements of the insurer and does not invent them.
Use every opportunity to get documents from the Traffic Police for the accident. So you will make it easier for you, as well as for the car hire company and the lost benefits for both parties will be minimal.