This shot in the NT News got me thinking:
Narrow escape from storm's full fury | News | NT News | Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia | ntnews.com.au
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What would you do if suddenly you were faced with the prospect of not having a sealed road back to your rental office? Apparently the Stuart highway was washed away and took the above car with it, which is possibly one of the rental companies Darwin fleet!
It's not a rental car - the wheels are aftermarket, not factory Holden wheels. Also, it's too old for the majors - it looks to be one of the first VE's, from 2006/7/8.
As for what I would do, it depends who I rented the car from! See below.
The first thing about car rental insurance clauses that exclude cover when driving on sealed roads is that this just means there is no insurance - this only comes into play in the event of a issue.
cf. It is not in itself illegal to drive on unsealed roads with such exclusions, it's just that the renter may wears the full cost of any accidental damage that occurs when the vehicle is being driven on an unsealed roads.
As for the image from the article, the road still seems sealed, just not contiguously - you can see bits of the bitumen all around.
The waiver (not insurance) terms, depend on the rental company:
Hertz - allow driving on unsealed roads, but provide no cover whilst you are doing so. It is not a breach of the rental agreement. This is what you have mentioned.
Avis/Budget - allow driving on unsealed well maintained/graded roads, with full cover.
Europcar & Thrifty - prohibit driving on unsealed roads. It is a breach of the rental agreement, so you have no cover from that point on, even if you damage the car on a sealed road after you've driven on an unsealed road.
I seem to recall something about submerging the vehicle in water or driving on flooded roads being not covered. So they will probably say that the driver continued into a flooded area and refuse to pay.
Correct. Driving on roads that are flooded, or are subject to flooding, is a breach of the agreement, so no cover from that point on. Also, water damage, including immersion, regardless of cause, is not covered. The exception is Hertz, which limits some water damage (e.g. interior if you leave the windows down and it rains) to $2,200.
So would credit card insurance cover this damage?
In a word, no. Cards cover the excess (except for Amex Plat Charge), not damage. In this case, there would be no excess, you would be responsible for all damage, so no card cover.
You could ask the Rental car company to pick it up, as one person did for an incident not far away from the photo location, the bill was nasty!
A TOURIST has won a victory for the little man by being let off an $8000 rental car bill. Paul Douglas-Denton, 60, was billed by Europcar for towing his rental car approximately 300 kilometres from Katherine to Darwin after vandals smashed the vehicle overnight outside his hotel in July, the
Northern Territory News reported.
The company said the right to claim the money was contained in the fine print of the hire contact.
But NT Consumer Affairs Commissioner Gary Clements said Europcar misinterpreted its own terms and conditions and was forced to back down.
When I was researching 4WD hire in NT recently, I was advised by Budget that recovery of a damaged/bogged vehicle from Jim Jim/Twin Falls area would cost about that much. It seems they weren't far from the truth!
Love it!
Hear too many stories about this sort of thing from Europcar in particular.
I agree. As I posted in another thread, the Europcar franchisee in Tassie is being taken to court for dodgy damage practices.
