Turo: bad experience with claim

I would not recommend Turo to anyone. We were forced to use Turo because all the car rentals in our city were fully booked for the summer. We hired two cars, the first was totally fine, the second got a puncture. For both we paid extra for "premium insurance" through Turo. According to their policy, the cost is "65% to 100% of the trip price"; and it "limits your responsibility to $0 to Turo for physical damage to your host’s vehicle".

Despite this, we were forced to pay $625 for replacing all the tires (it was an all-wheel drive so all tires need to be replaced not just damaged ones) after spending about 5 hours cumulatively on the phone with consultants in various departments finding out the process, and trying to get Turo to cover the bill. After we paid (we were forced to pay before we could collect the car), we were told by Turo that we should simply submit photos of the invoices and Turo would pay. We have not been paid for a week now, and when we followed up, we have been told that we may not be reimbursed, because "we shouldn't have paid because we had the premier plan".

Besides this cost to us, we had to pay for 2 Uber rides, we lost 24 hours of use of the car, we were hugely inconvenienced, extremely stressed (our vacation was completely ruined, we didn't even go out, just sat inside with consultants on the line). We are still spending time trying to sort things out with consultants, over a week later. Our cumulative time on calls must be more than 15 hours now.

We have also had some calls from extremely arrogant consultants, mainly in the Claims Department, who are insensitive. They interrupt, refuse to listen, and generally are not willing to help. One such consultant drove me to deep distress this morning, so much so that my 4-month old baby even started crying as he could tell I was so upset. This borders harassment, especially since I had asked this particular consultant to rather call back later.

We also had some fantastic consultants help us, who were extremely sympathetic, but sadly this hasn't produced results. We have heard countless different stories about process.

One of the biggest issues in my opinion is that Turo is made up of all these different divisions and departments, who don't seem to talk to each other. There should have been one person handling our case, and the burden should have been on Turo to sort everything out, not on us to start fresh every day with a new consultant who has a different opinion.

I will never use Turo again. Great concept, shocking application.