A Funny Thing Happened When I Rented a Car
March 13, 2023
The bad news is you rented a car and crashed it. The good news is, if you paid for the rental using your American Express Platinum Card, you may be eligible to receive valuable benefits!
First off, I hope you didn’t die in the accident, but if you did, you would be paid $200,000. Well, not you per se, but your beneficiaries would receive a cool $200,000. Cash. That’s enough for two-plus years of private college. For one kid. A legacy that will surely be forgotten, resented, or otherwise taken for granted.
But is there a way for you to get some money and keep that money for yourself?
Boy, is there!
All you have to do is get dismembered. Hold on! I know it sounds grotesque, but hear me out. Dismemberment is just insurance company talk for losing parts of your body.
This seems like a lucky loophole, doesn’t it? Almost too good to be true. Most of us don’t know that our limbs and senses can be traded for cash value. But there it is in black and white, an easy-to-follow chart that lays out just how much money each of your bodily components is worth. Cash money, son!
Accidental death and dismemberment. Everyone understands accidental death, but we spend too little time thinking about accidental dismemberment, especially its unanticipated financial benefits. People who live in houses filled with powered chainsaws surely understand, but what about the rest of us?
Let’s take a few examples. Let’s say you rented a car, got into an accident, and are now blind in both eyes. Bad news? Sure. But the good news is you would be paid out as if you flat-out died. You would be paid 100% of the total benefits, or $200,000! That’s $200,000 you can use towards a pool, or a new kitchen, or a new highly-trained dog.
What if you lost only one eye? The good news is your other eye works and you have partial vision. The bad news is you just lost half your pay-out—you only get $100k. What if the accident costs you your hearing in both ears? The good news is you still get some money, but only $100k, as human hearing is apparently worth exactly half as much as human sight. But, if you lose your hearing AND your ability to speak? Well, in that case I’m happy to report that you get the full $200,000. The lesson there is that if you crash your rental car and find that you can’t hear anything, when they examine you, just shut the fuck up.
Your limbs and their level of attachment can also be directly correlated to your bank account. You lose both hands or both feet? $200,000, no questions asked. What if you lose one hand? $100,000. One foot? Also $100,000. Fair is fair. But did you know that you can get the full $200,000 if you stumble out of that accident with one hand and one foot still intact? That’s 200,000 cool American dollars to help pay for, among other things, dance lessons. America’s cowboys have been dancing in that style for years!
What about this for a surprise benefit? If you lose your sight in one eye AND a hand or foot, you get the full $200,000. I’m not entirely sure what the accident looks like that causes that result—I imagine lots of ball-bearings flying through the interior of the vehicle, ping-pang-ping!—but don’t ask any questions. That payout there is the same as if you were dead.
Also, bad news for all you daredevil Lotharios out there: autoeroticism is expressly excluded from coverage.
On an unrelated note, there is no dismemberment coverage if you lose your genitalia in the accident (a word that implies the plural, but not sure why). I suppose you have to pre-purchase an insurance rider if you want that type of coverage. The lesson there is that if your plan is to rent a car, jerk off, crash the car, and get your dick chopped off, by all means do so, just don’t expect to cash in on the experience. Do it because you want to.
More free advice: if you eventually die from the accident, make sure you do it within 365 days of the date of the accident. A prolonged coma will not help you when it comes to American Express death and dismemberment insurance. Tell your loved ones that, if you are ever in a car accident involving a rental car AND you paid for the rental using your American Express Platinum card, that you want them to pull the plug no later than Day 364 (maybe 363, in case it takes you a few days to die). Someone should really come up with an AMEX-specific Living Will for these specific circumstances. Something you can sign at the rental desk.
Finally, for all you schemers out there, how can you ensure that the accident you’re getting into on purpose won’t kill you, but will likely lead to valuable dismemberment benefits? I know it won’t be easy, but I do know one thing: make sure your fly is zipped up.