If you’re renting a car for Thanksgiving or the holidays, the price of a scrape isn’t just the repair. Rental contracts can also bill you for the days the car sat in the shop, a fee for processing your claim, and the drop in the car’s resale value.
Your insurance and your credit card may not pay all of that. One state takes most of it off the table.
What the bill looks like
A renter’s 2022 Hertz bill, published by View from the Wing, had three charges: a $150 administrative fee, $315 for loss of use, and $1,289.01 for diminished value. The renter’s Chase card paid the first two, $465. It didn’t pay diminished value.
In 2025, a renter who hit a deer in an Alaska Hertz van got a $5,873 damage bill ten months later. The renter’s card coverage paid it. Then Hertz asked for another $842 in diminished value, with no documentation. Hertz waived it, but only after a consumer columnist got involved.
New York says no
New York’s rental vehicle law is blunt. Loss of use and related administrative fees “shall not be recovered from any authorized driver or his or her insurer.” What you owe for damage is capped at the lesser of the real repair cost, with available discounts, or the car’s fair market value just before the damage.
The counter’s damage waiver is capped too. It’s $9 a day for a car with a sticker price up to $20,000, $12 up to $35,000, and $15 up to $50,000. Above that, there’s no cap.
Rent anywhere else and your protection comes down to the contract you sign and your own state’s law. That’s the deal most travelers get.
What your card covers
A standard Visa Signature guide to benefits covers “valid loss-of-use charges imposed and substantiated by the auto rental company,” plus administrative fees and towing. If you carry your own auto insurance, it’s secondary: it pays your deductible and whatever your insurer leaves on those fees.
The fine print matters. You have to pay for the whole rental with the card and decline the counter’s waiver, and domestic rentals are covered for 15 consecutive days. Diminished value is excluded outright. So are trucks, most vans, and “expensive” cars, and the guide names Tesla.
The move
This week, call your insurer and ask three things. Does my collision coverage follow me into a rental? Does it pay loss of use and administrative fees? Does it pay diminished value? Then pull your card’s guide to benefits and read the rental section. Card benefits vary, so don’t assume yours matches the one above.
At pickup, video every panel before you leave the lot. If a bill arrives later, ask for the repair invoice and the records behind any loss of use or diminished value charge, in writing, before anyone pays.
For a broader look at what your own coverage costs, try our insurance estimator or browse our auto insurance coverage. And if someone else hits you, read about who picks your rental car.
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Sources
- New York General Business Law section 396-z, Rental vehicle protections (New York State Senate)
- Visa Signature Guide to Benefits, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver (as published by Credit Union of America)
- Elliott Advocacy, Hertz wants another $842 after my insurance paid. Is that legal? (August 27, 2025)
- View from the Wing, Here's Something Your Collision and Credit Card Rental Insurance May Not Cover When You Rent Cars (August 29, 2022)