Damage claim charges | Guests
Learn about your financial responsibility as a guest for damage to a host's vehicle and how Resortifi determines out-of-pocket costs.
Financial responsibility for damage to a host’s vehicle
You’re responsible for any eligible damage that occurs during a trip, whether or not you’re at fault or caused the damage. By choosing a protection plan available through Resortifi, you can limit the amount you’d have to pay out of pocket if your host’s vehicle is damaged during your trip. See plan information for trips in the US, Australia, Canada, France, and the UK.
The amount you’d owe for physical damage to a host’s vehicle is determined by three factors.
The amount of eligible damage, including costs and fees
The amount that your personal auto insurance pays for those damages (if applicable)
The out-of-pocket maximum included in your purchased protection plan
Keep in mind that host and guest protection plans are separate. You’re responsible for eligible damage costs up to the limit of the protection plan you choose. You agree to take financial responsibility for damage to and accidents involving your host’s vehicle during the reservation period. The amount a host receives for a damage claim is based on the plan they chose. It doesn’t affect the amount you may owe.
How we determine guest out-of-pocket costs
If Resortifi handles a damage claim, we’ll investigate to verify that the damage occurred during the trip and that it is eligible damage. If it is, you’re responsible for the damage and related costs, regardless of whether you caused the damage. If you were charged a security deposit for your trip, those funds will be held and applied to any balance due.
If the damage is eligible for reimbursement to the host, Resortifi will:
- charge you a damage deposit in line with the extent of damage and the protection plan you chose
- Get an assessment of the damage to determine the repair/replacement cost
- Add related costs and fees under your chosen protection plan, if any.
Once the final claim cost is determined, if there’s a third party that was identified as being at fault and we can collect from them, we’ll pursue that source first. If we can’t recover from the third party’s insurance company, what we do next depends on whether the protection plan you chose is primary or secondary. If it’s secondary, we’ll try to recover the damage costs, claims processing, and appraisal fees from your personal insurer, if you have one. If it’s primary, we won’t try to recover anything from your personal insurer.
After we recover costs from your personal insurer (if possible), we’ll check to see if there’s still an outstanding balance due. If there is, we’ll compare it to the amount of out-of-pocket costs you’re responsible for based on your protection plan. The protection plan limits the amount that we’d collect from you to reduce the outstanding balance. Providing that you’ve complied with Resortifi’s Terms of Service, the most you’d ever have to pay out of pocket is the maximum on the plan you chose. If there’s no balance due or if the amount due is less than the amount of any deposits we’ve charged you, we’ll refund the remaining deposit amount.
To better understand how a guest protection plan works when it comes to determining your out-of-pocket costs, see the example below.
Example
Jeff is a US guest who purchased the Minimum guest protection plan for a recent trip. This plan limits Jeff’s personal responsibility (aka liability) for eligible damages to the host vehicle to $3,000. While the vehicle was parked at Jeff’s hotel, vandals broke into it and caused damage. Jeff has a personal insurance plan with Mighty Insurance, which comes with a $1,000 out-of-pocket maximum (aka deductible).
Resortifi or its third-party claims administrator evaluated the claim and found that the damages were eligible damages that occurred during the trip. Resortifi charged Jeff an initial damage deposit of $500. The amount of damage was determined to be $1,900. Related costs and fees were $75 for claims handling and $75 for appraisal estimating. That made the total cost $2,050.
Resortifi presented this amount to Jeff’s insurer, Mighty Insurance. Mighty Insurance subtracted Jeff’s $1,000 deductible from the bill as well as the $150 related costs and fees, which they did not cover. Mighty Insurance paid $900 of the damages. Since there was still a balance due, Resortifi presented Jeff with a final invoice for $650.
Total damage of $2,050 - Insurance payment of $900 = $1,150 total owed - $500 damage deposit = $650 final invoice.