Rental vehicles: contracts: damage waivers.

Existing law governs contracts between vehicle rental companies and their customers and authorizes a rental company to sell a damage waiver for each full or partial 24-hour rental day. Existing law specifies the maximum rate of the damage waiver sold, as $9 or $15 per rental day, as determined by criteria that include the rental company designation of the vehicle based upon the manufacturer's suggested retail price and model year. For purposes of these provisions, existing law requires the manufacturer's suggested retail price to be adjusted annually to reflect changes from the previous year in the Consumer Price Index, as defined. This bill would remove the manufacturer's suggested retail price as one of the criteria for the rate of a damage waiver sold by a rental company. The bill would increase the maximum rate of the damage waiver to $11 per rental day for rental vehicles that a rental company designates as an "economy car," "compact car," or another term that has a similar meaning to the 2 smallest categories of vehicles described in prescribed standards, as of January 1, 2014. The bill would also increase the maximum rate of the damage waiver to $17 per rental day for rental vehicles in the next 3 body-size categories of vehicles described in these standards and that are also within a specified model year. For rentals that are older than the previous year's model, the bill would specify the maximum rate as $11 per rental day. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 1936 of the Civil Code made by AB 2747 that would become operative if this bill and AB 2747 are both enacted and this bill is enacted last.