How does loss of use work?

When your car is taken off the road after a crash, the law recognizes something simple and deeply human: you’ve been deprived of your property. Even temporarily, even if the car is sitting at a body shop, even if you borrow a spare — someone else’s actions have taken away your right to use what’s yours. That right is older than the United States. Property can’t be taken or disabled without compensation. Period.

For some people, loss of use is a crisis. “How do I get to work?” “How do we juggle kids with one car?” These aren’t small inconveniences — they’re daily-life ruptures. Your own insurer may help with rental reimbursement if you bought that coverage, but the limits are usually low and the rentals basic.

But Washington law requires something different from the at-fault driver:

They owe you the rental value of your vehicle — like-kind whenever reasonably available.

Not the cheapest econobox they can find. Not whatever is “good enough.” That rule was confirmed in Grothe v. Kushnivich, the appellate decision I litigated and won.

And here’s the part many people never hear: loss of use isn’t just for daily drivers. If you own a high-end or specialty vehicle and it’s sidelined — even if it’s not your commuter, even if you didn’t rent anything at all — the at-fault driver still owes the daily rental value of that specific vehicle. Sometimes that number is hundreds of dollars per day. In many cases, the loss-of-use claim is larger than the diminished-value claim. Most people don’t know they have that right until I tell them.

If an insurer paid for a cheaper rental, they get credit for what they paid — but they don’t get to say the downgrade was “close enough.” And if they paid nothing, they still owe everything the law allows.

Loss of use is not a favor from an insurance company.

It’s a property right. One of the oldest we have.

If an adjuster won’t honor it, I will.