You probably hand over your keys to the parking garage attendant
without a thought. But maybe you shouldn't.
When a Cocoa, Fla., parking-lot owner was caught recently on
camera joy riding in a customer's fire-engine-red 2012 Corvette
convertible, the
TV footage
went viral.
Reporters at WFTV-9 in Orlando, Fla., heard that valets at the
cruise-ship parking lot had been having fun driving customers'
vehicles. So the station set up a sting, sending a couple of
"customers" to leave a rented 430-horsepower, $60,000 Corvette at
the lot.
The lot's owner and employees drove the car 61 miles down
highways and dirt roads, unaware their joy riding was caught on
camera. Video shows the lot's owner parking the 'Vette at
Applebee's for dinner, using it to haul lumber from Ace Hardware,
leaving it overnight at his home and even letting a small dog
scrabble around on the car's exterior. Confronted by a reporter,
though, the man denied he'd used the car.
The lot
appeared to have shut down
soon after the incident. But the incident provokes a good question
for those who use paid parking frequently:Who gets stuck with the
tab when the person you've paid to safeguard your car damages
it?
Wild and crazy valets
You'd like to think this is not a problem you're likely to ever
encounter. And if you drive a 1995 Honda Civic, you probably
won't.
But if your car is a newer, upscale model, you could be at risk.
CBS consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen spoke
with a New York couple who wrote down the mileage on their BMW's
odometer before handing the keys to a parking lot attendant at John
F. Kennedy International Airport. When the couple returned 11 days
later, the odometer had an extra 724 miles.
Koeppen also interviewed a former parking valet who confessed
that he and co-workers used to "go for spins in other people's cars
almost every night."
A spin -- or sometimes more. Consider the 2005 Mercedes-Benz
SL65 AMG convertible that a parking valet at Vancouver
International Airport crashed in 2007. That car, which accelerates
from zero to 100 mph in 4.2 seconds, flew out of control in the
hands of the valet while passing a truck on the way to the
company's lot. The Mercedes left the road, crossed a concrete
barrier and landed in a row of shrubs.
Insurance --
CTVBC television
doesn't say whose -- covered the $26,000 in repairs. But the owner
sued the valet, the valet's employer and the airport authority,
winning $16,000 for accelerated depreciation, $3,000 for two months
of lost use of the car and a few thousand dollars for other special
repairs, the station says.
View crazy valets antics for yourself on this video at AOL
Autos, purportedly shot by parking attendants in St. Louis while
abusing vehicles at an upscale hotel a few years ago. The valets
reportedly posted the video themselves on YouTube.
The parking lot pays -- if it has insurance
Experts agree: If a valet is at fault when your car is damaged,
the repairs are covered by the parking company's liability
insurance.
"Ultimately, if the car owner were to turn over his keys and
while under the care, custody and control of the valet … his car
was damaged, then the valet company would be responsible," says
Chris Hackett, spokesperson for the Property Casualty Insurers
Association of America (PCIAA), an insurance industry
organization.
Depending on the type of insurance the parking company has, you
might even be covered if the valet is not at fault. Parking
operators carry one of two types of "garage keepers'" liability
insurance, says Kathy Phillips, senior vice president with Alliant
Insurance Services, a national brokerage firm based in Newport
Beach, Calif., that specializes in placing insurance for parking
companies and other businesses.
The types of coverage are:
- Direct and primary insurance, which obligates a parking
company's insurer to fix damage caused when your vehicle is in
the hands of a parking valet, regardless of who is at fault.
- Legal liability insurance, which covers only damage caused
when a valet is negligent.
For example, if the valet's employer has legal liability
insurance and an employee is rear-ended while driving your car, the
parking-lot company's insurance will not pay. But if the company's
insurance is the direct-and-primary type, you're covered no matter
who is to blame. In that case, the parking company's insurance pays
up, decides who was at fault and gets reimbursed from the other
driver's insurance if necessary.
Parking operators are largely a very responsible group, but a
few operate without insurance. It's impossible for a consumer to
identify the rogues or guard against them, says Phillips. "I'm no
different, and I know the industry. When I drive up to a parking
company, I don't know if they have insurance or not," she says.
Will your insurance pay?
States don't require parking companies to have insurance. Some
cities do. Others do not. Los Angeles, for example, requires a
police permit, business license, insurance and a parking lot
license bond from parking company operators, Phillips says. Other
cities may regulate parking lot companies only where they operate
on public property.
Occasionally, customers must make claims on their own insurance
to cover damage from a valet. "If it turns out that the valet
company is bankrupt or had insufficient funds, there would be
coverage under your own auto insurance," Hackett says.
Of course, that assumes you carry collision coverage.
If you do have it, you can make life easier by filing the
insurance claim on your own policy and letting your insurer pursue
the parking-lot company for reimbursement, says Penny Gusner,
consumer analyst for CarInsurance.com. In that case, you'll have to
pay the deductible, but you'll get it back from your insurer if the
valet or parking company is at fault.
One valet incident by itself won't cause your rate to go up if
you're not at fault, says Gusner. But if it is one of a string of
claims, it might.
"You now have a claim on your insurance history. It probably
wouldn't affect you because you weren't the driver. But insurance
companies, if you have a certain number of claims, might raise your
rates or not renew you," Gusner says.