@ TN, you are exactly right. Car rental companies will just pass the extra cost on to the consumer.
I’ve noticed in recent years that leasing companies have allowed state minimum limits instead of 100/300/50. What’s the difference? In all my years in insurance, I’ve never seen XYZ Leasing Co named in a lawsuit. Why car rentals?
The problem becomes that if they allow this to go forward then the already expensive business of renting a vehicle will go up even further, possibly causing some companies not to even want do business in the state. This is obviously a case in which the Fl Supreme Court needs to do the right thing and let the Federal law prevail.
I still don’t understand why a non-negligent owner should be held to primary liability instead of excess. Negligent entrustment and dangerous insturmentality I understand. But most of the time, the negligent driver walks away scott free and many times without even a premium increase. This needs to be flipped across the board.
In most cases the owner is primary. This is mainly because of financial responsibility laws that require the owner to purchase liability insurance for their vehicle. There is no way to make it a requirement to purchase insurance if you are a driver unless you’re the driver of a rental vehicle and do not have a vehicle with a policy of your own that would transfer over to the rental vehicle or if you drive other people’s vehicles all the time and get a non-owner’s policy. The reason that they want to turn the onus onto the rental companies is simple. They have deeper pockets. The only way for the rental companies to protect themselves if this is allowed to go through, is to put a mandatory liability insurance clause into their rental contracts with minimal limits and if the renter’s policy doesn’t muscle up, then require the renter to purchase a supplemental policy which in the long run is going to drive up rental vehicle costs.
Actually a while back there used to be plenty of suits naming the leasing companies in an attempt to get another layer of coverage, however legislation, and contracts with built in hold harmless clauses took the teeth out of that.
@ TN, you are exactly right. Car rental companies will just pass the extra cost on to the consumer.
I’ve noticed in recent years that leasing companies have allowed state minimum limits instead of 100/300/50. What’s the difference? In all my years in insurance, I’ve never seen XYZ Leasing Co named in a lawsuit. Why car rentals?
The problem becomes that if they allow this to go forward then the already expensive business of renting a vehicle will go up even further, possibly causing some companies not to even want do business in the state. This is obviously a case in which the Fl Supreme Court needs to do the right thing and let the Federal law prevail.
I still don’t understand why a non-negligent owner should be held to primary liability instead of excess. Negligent entrustment and dangerous insturmentality I understand. But most of the time, the negligent driver walks away scott free and many times without even a premium increase. This needs to be flipped across the board.
In most cases the owner is primary. This is mainly because of financial responsibility laws that require the owner to purchase liability insurance for their vehicle. There is no way to make it a requirement to purchase insurance if you are a driver unless you’re the driver of a rental vehicle and do not have a vehicle with a policy of your own that would transfer over to the rental vehicle or if you drive other people’s vehicles all the time and get a non-owner’s policy. The reason that they want to turn the onus onto the rental companies is simple. They have deeper pockets. The only way for the rental companies to protect themselves if this is allowed to go through, is to put a mandatory liability insurance clause into their rental contracts with minimal limits and if the renter’s policy doesn’t muscle up, then require the renter to purchase a supplemental policy which in the long run is going to drive up rental vehicle costs.
Actually a while back there used to be plenty of suits naming the leasing companies in an attempt to get another layer of coverage, however legislation, and contracts with built in hold harmless clauses took the teeth out of that.
Thank you TN. Why haven’t the car rental companies done the same thing?