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CAR RENTAL CAR INSURANCE NIGHTMARE


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On Friday a friend came down for a funeral. The friend is Mexican but has lived in the U.S. for many years and has U.S. citizenship. The day after the funeral he rented a car from the company in Ajijic along the carretera that rents new cars and took three of us up to Mazamitla. On our way back home a huge truck passed another huge truck in our lane and my friend narrowly missed having four more funerals. There was no where to pull over except to plunge into the lake. I don't know how he did it but he saved us.

Meanwhile, the Mexican driver behind us slammed into the back of our rental car. The driver had no insurance and the rental company's insurance adjuster took about 2.5 hours to get to the scene. The Mexican driver's family kept yelling at us (!!) and just couldn't or wouldn't get it that both our cars narrowly missed getting smashed by the big truck (apparently they hadn't seen it coming). The Mexican driver's car had a big "cow catcher" on the front and didn't even get a scrape.

The insurance adjuster told us that there was a 15,000 peso deductible but because the Mexican family had no car insurance and no money (couldn't tell from the looks of their big SUV) we, the victims, would have to accept the charge and pay it. Some bumper-to-bumper insurance WE bought from the car rental place.The adjuster said that if he had to call the Federales we would all be in trouble and my friend had a flight to catch the next morning back to the U.S. Unbelievably the family kept yelling at us like it was all our fault. It turns out that the rental car business insures each car under a person's name--not a company name.

Bottom line; the victims had to float a loan to the driver without insurance with only the hope of seeing that money repaid. The insurance company had their money up front. The car rental agency gets a repaired car at no cost even though we paid for bumper-to-bumper insurance.

What did we get out of it? We paid a lot more for the car rental than we bargained for and we will NEVER rent from that place again. Next time it's the airport for us with real car rental businesses. It just isn't worth the risk to rent locally.

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Horrible experience. I'm glad everyone got out of it alive.

I do wonder, though, when we get the details of an awful accident like this involving a car rental and a questionable contract, why we're not told the name of the company.

It leaves us guessing which company it was, and we could all guess wrong. It's not fair to all the other car rental places not involved and protects the bad one. . . .the one we might innocently go to next. If a poster doesn't want to name names then make a location description so clear there's no doubt which place it was.

Lexy

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I don't think so CG because it apparently rents new cars.

Right, thanks. I missed that in the first sentence. Very unsettling that a "professional" company could offer this.

"In Ajijic along the carretera"... only one place I know of...

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Right, thanks. I missed that in the first sentence. Very unsettling that a "professional" company could offer this.

"In Ajijic along the carretera"... only one place I know of...

Which is...?

At least if you suggest a place the OP can deny it if it's wrong.

And was it the car rental place's bad business or the insurance company's? Maybe they need to get a new insurance provider.

This is why i HATE driving in Mexico. How could it be that the people who slammed into you, barely had a scratch on their car, and had no insurance are not culpable in any way?

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I think it's Linea Professional. Across the street from Lloyd. Haven't looked in a long time

And of course it would be the insurance company's ethics, but surely after being in the car rental business for many, many years, the rental company would have had experience with their insurer, enough to know how they deal with situations.

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You got scammed, they should have arrested the SUV driver and then they would have found a way to pay. Many insurance people are lazy and dont want to do their job.

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The insurance adjuster from Guadalajara admitted that the other car was at fault. It was just that they had no money. My friend is back in the U.S. The driver has been very angry with us. Thank God the driver of our rental car and two of the three passengers were Mexican and could talk with the local police, the adjuster and that very angry family. It's a good thing that my Spanish is so terrible because I really wanted to give them a piece of my mind. The Mexicans and my Mexican-American friend were never impolite and thanked everyone including the adjuster. I was "white hot" and they explained nicely to me that to be angry was not acceptable for a person with good manners. I figured that maybe if more people showed some righteous anger when things like this happened these things might happen less. At any rate; the driver and his family who hit us said that when they get the money they will pay us back.

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for those new to lakeside and mexico driving.... if your involved in an accident regardless if its your fault or not.. everyone involved is offically detained at that point untill they can provide proof of insurance that will cover the damages or medical bills to the affected individuals.

if you have no proof you will be arrested untill you can place the bail amount that is usually what the damages/ medical costs are.

when going on a road trip, you should always have extra water/snacks just in case you have to sit and wait for a couple of hours.....

usually people at fault will act the way the people acted towards you....

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However it was not the business but the insurance company which has caused this problem. I would speculate, because of what is said to have happened, that the adjuster for some unknown reason chose to favor the black SUV.

It always amazes me that people do not consider insurance when using a vehicle other than their own for any purpose. For instance a friend was once trying to make extra money by taking people to the airport for less than the taxi was costing. However I pointed out that should she have an accident with paying customers in the car then she would have probably voided her insurance as a private vehicle. She thought she could tell the people she took not to say anything if there was an accident....right, someone would keep that secret in an accident. She called her agent to ask and sure enough he cancelled her right then and there.

Many many years ago when we and all our friends had small children a group of women were going to go from Cleveland to Detroit for the opening of the casinos. We were going to go in two vans. One woman's husband, an Big 8 partner accountant type asked her about it and forbid her to drive or to ride with anyone else. Before long the husband telephoned each other and decided that taking 7 college-educated professionally employed young mothers in a private vehicle was not in their best fiscal interests. We took a private bus. The husbands were right. Each of those women was easily 8-figures in a settlement and all of those couples had significant assets that would have been at risk.

I do not even accept gas money when driving friends. Lunch tab, sure.

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here is my opinion: its ok to rent a car lakeside if your just using it around ajijic/Chapala area......... you have someone you can call and deal with any issues...

your other choice is to rent through orbitz for the car rental companies next to the airport......

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