Rental car damage

[stuckerjr]

Our company policy states that 1) all employees must book travel through Concur Travel and 2) you must use XYZ rental agency for rental cars and if you don't you must purchase the LDW/CDW insurance. Additionally, if an employee does not book with XYX agency in Concur Travel, we have setup alerts and email notifications instructing the employee to purchase the LDW/CDW insurance.  '

We have an employee who booked outside of Concur Travel because 'there were no rental cars available'. This employee failed to get the insurance and now the rental car company is claiming damage to a vehicle. The employee did not get the vehicle inspected at drop-off and was notified about the damage several weeks later.

How would you treat this? Would you require the employee to pay for the damage if we are held accountable?

[tracyh312]

I have had availability issues with our preferred supplier when booking in Concur.  Apparently, Concur is unable to recognize certain "benefits" of corporate contracts so my rental car program manager advised that in those situations to book online on their site or app.  Cars were always showing available (per the terms of our contract) and the booking was still trackable  for reporting as well as included the insurance coverage, etc.  I would look suggest potentially allowing employees to book direct with your preferred supplier, ONLY when no cars are showing in Concur.  

As far as the current situation, I don't feel that being notified weeks later is fair to the employee.  Who knows what transpired between the drop off and now.  I would certainly push back on the agency and fight it but unfortunately, this is not entirely uncommon when utilizing a supplier you don't necessarily have a relationship with.  If it's one of the "big" agencies like National/Enterprise/Avis/Budget/Hertz - I would try to fight it.  Hard to hold the employee responsible - in my opinion.

[MelanieT]

@stuckerjr Hi!  I agree with @tracyh312 , I would definitely dispute this with the Rental Car Company.  

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