The problem I am having with the adjusters is in their insistence that the same “waiting period” applies to a vehicle out of service for covered causes other than theft. The only difference, they state, is in the length of the period; twenty-four hours instead of forty-eight. I believe the two waiting periods are different, with the twenty-four-hour item being the condition under which expenses are considered for insurance rather than being deducted. Can you help?

Ohio Subscriber

A

The agreement as to transportation expenses says it will cover so much per day and so much in total and that no deductible will apply to these payments.  That is true. No deductible applies to the payments. The trouble is that the payments do not always begin concurrently with the loss. For most insureds faced with a first day bill from the rental agency (assuming no grace period is offered) or the need to arrange other transportation, this is going to look an awful lot like a deductible. And, of course, it is. It's just different from the monetary deductible the policy promises will not apply to the payments once they begin.

And you are correct that the same “waiting period” does not apply to loss of use from covered damage other than theft. The theft statement has it that “we will pay only expenses…[b]eginning forty-eight hours after the theft,” and the statement as to other damage has it that the expenses to be paid are those “beginning when the auto is withdrawn from use for more than twenty-four hours.”  When a car is stolen, there is a forty-eight hour waiting period and then coverage of transportation expenses begins; when a car is wrecked and it is determined it will be out of service for longer than twenty-four hours, transportation expense coverage begins immediately.