Maison Law represents people who are hurt in rental car accidents due to another driver’s mistake. Our Carmel car accident lawyers aggressively seek compensation for our clients from reckless drivers and, in some cases, rental car companies. Please contact us for a free, no-obligation consultation for all local injury victims. It’s a no-risk opportunity to find out what your injury may be worth and how to hold insurance companies fully responsible for recovery costs.
How Do I Know If I Need a Lawyer After My Rental Car Accident?
If your rental car accident involves only property damage, you should be able to reach a fair agreement with your car insurer and the rental car company without the help of a lawyer. But when you are seriously injured in a collision and another motorist is to blame, a Carmel rental car accident lawyer may prove to be a valuable protection.
Insurance companies and insurers who provide protection through rental agreements will look for ways to avoid having to provide support. They can try to blame you for an accident you didn’t cause or question how bad your injuries are. Your lawyer fully investigates your case and uses the evidence to force insurers to accept responsibility. Then your Maison Law representative demands the maximum in support available for you and your family.
Rental Car Accident Dangers in Carmel
Carmel is a beautiful place for vacations and plenty of people travel to Monterey County year-round to enjoy the amazing scenery. Many of those visitors will be in rental vehicles and some can be unfamiliar with local roads.
Careless tourists mix in with local traffic to create scary crash risks. A driver in a Hertz vehicle may be looking at a map on a phone instead of paying attention to a stop sign on Ocean Avenue. This kind of inattention can lead to crashes. You may be in a rental car when an aggressive driver swipes your car on Highway 1.
These impacts often cause heavy vehicle damage and painful injuries. Once emergency responders have arrived, victims may have time to wonder who pays for an accident involving a rental vehicle.
Sorting out the liability can be complex, and insurance companies will be happy to let you foot the bill, even when you weren’t to blame. When your medical bills are piling up and you’ve lost time at work, It’s important to have a skilled Carmel attorney handling your case. It’s often a necessary precaution to hold insurance adjusters and rental car companies fully responsible for what happened.
Who Is Responsible for My Carmel Rental Car Accident?
In some instances, a collision involving a rental car would be resolved much like an accident involving two personal vehicles. Many people who rent cars rely on their normal car insurance to cover them if an accident occurs.
But there are other insurance options that may be purchased or that are included with certain credit cards that can play a role in how an accident is resolved.
These are just some of the insurance choices that could affect how you receive accident compensation:
- Another Driver’s Insurance Policy — If another driver strikes you while you are behind the wheel of a rental car, the driver’s auto insurance provider should be paying for the damage. This would also be true if the other driver is in a rental car and hits your family vehicle. The at-fault driver’s insurance should apply. The other driver’s insurance must cover the cost of repairing or replacing a rental car. The policy should also help you pay your medical bills and replace the income you lose while healing.
- Your Car Insurance — If you caused damage to your rental car, your car insurance may cover the damages. The rental car company would want to repair or replace the car before they lost a lot of profit while the car was unable to be rented out. Many car insurance companies cover policyholders when they drive a rental car for personal use. It’s important to ask what your policy will cover before you sign a rental agreement. This gives you the chance to purchase additional coverage if necessary. Unfortunately, the support would likely come after you’ve had to pay a large deductible.
- Credit Card Coverage – Some credit cards provide accident protection when you charge a rental car. These protections usually repair or replace your rental car up to a certain limit. They might also cover vehicles that have been stolen or vandalized. Credit card protection may not cover the damage to another vehicle or the cost of injury support.
- Your Car Rental Car Coverage – Rental car companies like Enterprise offer many levels of insurance you can add on when you rent your car. There are also 3rd party rental car insurance providers who offer policies. Some cover any damage to a rental car and the damage to another vehicle. Other policies provide compensation to you and any other injured victims. Beware: This coverage may also come with a large deductible you must pay before coverage kicks in for the rest.
- The Rental Car Company – If a rental car company somehow contributed to your accident, your lawyer would demand full compensation for your damages. A rental car business may have given you a car with faulty tires or worn brakes. They may not have warned you of potential dangers in the area. These and other circumstances might leave a rental car company liable for your damages and injuries.
One big advantage of having a skilled Carmel car accident lawyer handling your case is that your attorney identifies every party that may owe you support after a crash. The other driver, a rental car company, and even your own car insurance provider could be required to help you recover.
The more injury claims you can file, the better the chance that all of your hardships will get covered. It reduces the chance that you’ll be stuck paying recovery bills from an accident you didn’t cause.
What Should I Do After a Rental Car Accident?
After getting struck by a rental car or being struck while driving a rental car, it’s important to stock up on evidence from the scene for the potential battle with a rental car company ahead.
Dial 911 and get the Carmel Police or the California Highway Patrol on the way. If you are hurt, get checked out by paramedics.
Then, if the scene is secure, and you are left strong enough, get as much photographic evidence as possible. Get pics of the damage to cars, your visible injuries, and the license plates of each vehicle.
Make sure to get contact information from drivers and witnesses. If an officer doesn’t provide it, get driver’s license and car insurance information from all drivers involved.
Also, make sure you notify the insurance companies and rental companies involved.
- Alert the Rental Car Company as Soon as Possible – You might find a sticker inside your rental car that contains a phone number to call in an emergency. The rental car company will want to fill out an accident report of its own. Do everything the rental car company asks you to do.
- Alert Your Own Car Insurance Provider – Just like if you were in your own car, you’d want to inform your insurer about your accident.
Compensation Available for Victims After a Rental Car Accident
As soon as your lawyer is made aware of your accident, your Maison Law representative goes to work collecting all additional evidence. This can include accident reconstruction findings, witness testimony, and any surveillance video that recorded the accident. Your lawyer also looks into the record of the at-fault driver and the practices of the rental car company.
Your lawyer assembles the evidence to submit a strong injury claim and includes a complete list of every hardship you and your family endured after the accident.
Your Maison Law attorney would demand support for a few things you may not have known could earn you additional support on a car accident settlement check:
- Hospital and medical expenses.
- Estimates for the support you could need over a lifetime after suffering a permanent physical disability.
- Travel costs as you may have to visit doctors out of the area and travel to appointments while you are on crutches or in a wheelchair.
- Support for the emotional trauma you are left with. Anxiety and PTSD symptoms you experience due to the trauma of a car crash. The depression you face during a long and difficult injury rehabilitation also factors in.
- Support for the physical pain you endure and the chronic pain that may be present in the years to come.
- Past and future lost income while you miss work.
- Damage or destruction of personal property.
Contact a Carmel Rental Car Accident Attorney
Anyone injured in a car accident is given up to two years to file an injury claim. Waiting beyond this deadline would usually result in the case being thrown out and victims left to pay all medical bills out of their own pockets.
Contact Maison Law to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with an actual Carmel rental car accident lawyer. We want to hear what happened to you. We’re going to answer your questions and make sure you are fully aware of the insurance tactics you’ll face. These shady practices are meant to limit the money you receive. Avoiding these pitfalls will be key to earning what’s fair for your car accident injury claim.
If you feel we can help you earn more for your injury, you don’t have to worry about how you’ll pay us. Maison Law works on a contingency basis. That means we don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then our legal fees come out of a settlement an insurance company must pay you.
