Car Rental - Additional Insurance

godtabh

Heading to the states in a few weeks. Have a car rented for about a week.

Been advised by some one that I should get additional insurance but not from the rental company to cover all eventualities with no excess. Been told it will cost about €7 per day.

Any recommendations on who to go with?

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godtabh wrote: »

Heading to the states in a few weeks. Have a car rented for about a week.

Been advised by some one that I should get additional insurance but not from the rental company to cover all eventualities with no excess. Been told it will cost about €7 per day.

Any recommendations on who to go with?

Blue insurance do car excess.

MagicBusDriver1

Check your rental voucher. You might already have loss damage waiver with 0 excess.

glynf

I usually call the hire company desk where I am picking up and ask them what zero excess costs with them. If its not silly money I go with them. Reason being if there is an accident, the person who hires the car gets hit with the excess from the hire company and its then up to yourself to get on to the third party insurer to claim the costs back. Never had to do it, but I imagine it could take a few weeks the way insurance companies work in my experience. It may cost a few quid more but if something happens its a lot less hassle.

Sheldons Brain

In the US the insurance, if booked with a European site, usually has little or no excess. In Europe there is a significant excess. Consequently, additional insurance generally should not be needed in the US, although sometimes they have bits and pieces that you may wish to avail of. But if you have travel insurance these may not be needed either.

godtabh

Thanks lads.

The wife has booked it so just need to get a hold of the details

godtabh

Just got the email. This is what is included

Collision damage waiver (CDW) No Excess
Third party liability protection (TP)
Theft waiver (TW)

Purchased through car trawler

JIdontknow

Recently rented a car (here in Ireland incase that makes a difference), and the excess was about 1700 euros. Rental company offered me excess cover for 20 euro a day, that brought the excess down to 100 euros. Got independant car rental excess cover for I think it was 3.99 euros a day for the 10 days, as opposed to paying basically double the rental cost (Car cost 22-25 a day, 250-300 deposit, then with their excess protection would be about 700, getting back the deposit aftewards, and if anything happened then I would still have to pay 100 excess). They will try guilt you into getting the excess protection with them, I imagine its where they make their profit, saying its very unusual for someone to rent without it,everyone takes it, saying it ANYTHING happens then you will be charged, asking are you sure, be it a chip on windscreen or anything wrong at all you will be charged. To be honest it nearly worked on me, after taking the car I was thinking should I have taken their excess cover as opposed to the cheaper independant one, and I was parking the car off away from other cars in car parks, moving it to bigger spaces, etc just to be extra careful, but nothing happened the car.

As the previous poster said the independant excess insurance cover companies, they do operate on a you pay out first then reclaim the costs from them. So IF anything did happen, the rental take the excess from your account for the repairs, THEN you claim back through your outside excess cover (This was written in the policy I got). BUT the rental companies do not check if you have 1700 or whatever the excess is, on your credit card at the time or renting. I was worried they would and I would have to pay their 20 a day excess protection.

worded

Interested in the best car hire insurance myself as well

Fatswaldo

I rent cars for work every month, different places. In my experiance, if you have no excess insurance you will be charged top dollar for something, a scratch, stone chip, tyre damage etc. Once you have an excess policy, they wont bother unless its serious. Must be a bonus scheme or something - free money!

ardmacha

godtabh wrote: »

Just got the email. This is what is included

Collision damage waiver (CDW) No Excess
Third party liability protection (TP)
Theft waiver (TW)

Purchased through car trawler

As noted above, in the US this should be fine. Car hire is actually one of the few things in the US that is more straightforward than here, if book from Europe. These large excesses in Europe should be outlawed as the default, but setup so that you can opt in to them for a discount.

ironclaw

Unless you are booking a car regularly or for a very long period, and your not covered by a company policy, then I see no issue in asking at the counter for 'everything' when you arrive. The 'if' factor is a gamble and I'd rather pay a little more and have them work it out that fork it out and go through a lengthy paperwork battle. I own Hertz San Francisco a door from a car robbery but 'as long as the keys are in it' I had nothing to do bar sign a form.