YES! … You are entitled to reimbursement from the responsible party’s insurance company for a reasonable period of time.
The person who caused the accident and who caused you to lose the ability to drive your own vehicle is legally responsible to (1) provide a rental car during the period of time it takes to reasonably resolve the total loss of the vehicle; or (2) pay the reasonable rental value (known as “loss of use”) for each day that your car is not fixed, as long as that period of time is reasonable.
However, the insurance company of the person who caused the accident has a reasonable amount of time to conduct an investigation into the liability for the accident before they are required to provide a rental car. This investigation could be completed within a few hours after the accident or it could take several days.
Therefore, whenever possible it is generally better to use your own auto insurance policy to obtain a rental car (if you have that provision in your policy) and have your own insurance carrier set up direct billing with the rental car company. This way, you can get into a rental car immediately.