Protect Your Excess

Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) is a form of cover that you can buy to increase your level of Third Party insurance for rentals in certain parts of the world including the USA.

Third party insurance protects you against financial awards made against you by a court resulting from claims from others (the third party) that you have injured them or damaged their property with the hire car.

For rentals in the UK, in many parts of Europe and in many other parts of the world, this cover will typically be supplied with the rental vehicle and be unlimited, which is to say that no matter how much the court awards in damages your policy would cover it in total.

This is not the case in countries such as the USA where there is little, if any, obligation to buy car rental insurance of any sort. Third party cover as supplied by the rental company, if it exists at all, may very well be limited to amounts which may be inadequate and well below the levels that could be awarded against you by a court.

In these circumstances it would be your personal responsibility to fund any amounts left unpaid by the insurance.

SLI can be obtained from your car hire company but you may find that this is an expensive way of buying this type of cover. There are a number of independent insurance specialist providers who operate on the Internet specialising in cover for car rentals. They have a wide portfolio of products specially tailored for your insurance needs in different parts of the world, including SLI, and their prices are typically cheaper.

In such situations it may also be worth taking into account that if your rental car comes with little or no third party cover and you need Supplemental Liability insurance, then there may not be sufficient cover for the car itself.

It may be worthwhile to have a look at the collision damage waiver (CDW) and what’s called the ‘excess cover’ available from these Internet specialists to ensure that you have insurance adequate for your needs.

If you buy SLI and/or collision damage waiver cover from these independent providers you will need to take your policy with you as you will need to give the car hire company details so that they can liaise with your insurance company in the event of a claim.

With ‘excess cover’ on the other hand, you may find that the car hire company may just charge the excess to your credit card and all you would then have to do would be to claim on your policy for reimbursement.

So, you don’t need supplemental liability insurance for rentals in the UK, many parts of Europe and for those other countries worldwide where third party cover is unlimited. However for destinations such as the USA and Canada where there may be no cover or for other countries where cover may be limited, it may be worth considering Supplemental Liability Insurance from the independent specialists for your rental.

An additional feature of many of the policies available from these independent specialists, including SLI cover, is that their policies can be available on an annual basis. An annual policy, subject to some conditions on types of vehicle, can be used for all of your rentals during the course of the year.

Understanding rental car insurance coverage is important because if you hire a rental car and don’t understand the details, you may end up with a potentially large outlay on your hands.

Rental car insurance coverage – the basics

Car rental insurance seeks to provide you with protection against the financial consequences of an accident that involves:

• costs being awarded against you following injury to another party or damage to their property as a result of your use of the hire car (third party liability insurance) and;
• damage to or theft of, the rental car while you have it under contract.

Rental car insurance coverage – who provides it?

In the UK and many other countries, typically the rental car will be provided with both forms of the above insurance included in the basic rental price. In the USA and some countries, the rental car may come with only limited third-party insurance (possibly none at all).

If the insurance is not included in the price (in the UK by law unlimited third party cover must be included with all rentals) the rental company will typically offer it for sale separately. You may also be able to purchase it (perhaps more cheaply) from the online specialist providers of car rental insurance.

Rental car insurance coverage – what are the issues?

You may find that the insurance that comes with the vehicle (or that you have purchased separately from the rental company) contains two issues that are worthy of some thought if you wish to avoid significant costs following an accident:

• the policy will usually contain an excess – that’s the amount of contribution you may have to make towards the cost of any accident before the rental company’s insurance will start to pay out. The excess is typically in the range £500-£1600;
• the wheels, tyres, roof, undercarriage and windows may all be excluded from cover – if they’re damaged it will be you who pays.

All in all, given these two ‘gaps’ you may find that even a relatively minor accident results in money being charged to your credit card.

Protecting yourself further

The car rental companies will typically offer you the option of purchasing ‘top-up’ insurance or what they may call ‘super-CDW’. To all intents and purposes this is additional insurance that means that the excess will be removed and possibly all areas of the vehicle included in cover.

In fact, you may be able to obtain the same additional protection by purchasing protection insurance (often called ‘excess insurance’) from an online specialist provider of car insurance.

You can use their policies to claim back from them any costs you are charged by the car rental company for ‘excluded area’ damage or excess. These policies are typically cheaper than those of the rental companies.

Another advantage of this type of policy from a specialist provider is that it can be sold to you, the policyholder, either daily or annually. This means that with an annual policy you could cover any car rented by you during the life of the policy (subject to some terms and conditions) thereby saving you even more money.

Rental car insurance coverage is important so making sure you’re getting the best deal possible typically makes sense.

In most countries of the world, by law you will need some form of rental car insurance if you’re driving a hire vehicle.

Typically this will stipulate that you must have a certain minimum level of third-party liability cover so that you can cover a component of the financial consequences of any awards against you should you have injured someone (or damaged their property) with the hire car. In general, the car hire companies will include this ‘minimum third-party cover’ in their basic rental price.

It may be worthwhile being a little cautious. In some countries such as the USA, individual State or national laws may set the required minimum at a very low level. If the rental car comes with say US $25,000 of third party cover and following an accident you have $500,000 awarded against you, then it will be your finances that have to find the balance of $475,000!

In the UK the third-party protection that comes with the rental car insurance as ‘included in the price’ must provide unlimited financial protection by law.

In some countries the rental vehicle may also be provided with CDW (collision damage waiver) included – even where it is not, the rental company will usually offer it to you for sale.

CDW functions to cover you against the cost of any damage incurred by the rental car while it’s on hire to you – and this protection includes theft. Once again, if the car sustains damage and you do not have CDW then it will be you who has to sign some hefty cheques for repairs.

The CDW provided by the rental companies will possibly contain some clauses that may also get you reaching for your chequebook following an accident.

You may find that the policy won’t cover the vehicle in total and that some areas or parts are excluded from cover. It will also typically contain a large excess that may fall in the range £500-£1600. That may be debited to your credit card after an accident as your ‘mandatory contribution’ towards the total cost of the claim.

If you’re uneasy about the risks arising for your wallet as a result of third-party or CDW limitations, you can protect yourself by taking out a little extra insurance.

Typically the car rental cover will offer you what they may describe as ‘rental car insurance top-up’. This means that for an additional sum they may remove the excess and cover the entire vehicle. In countries where it is applicable, they may also offer something called ‘Supplemental Liability Insurance’ (SLI) which can boost the amount of protection you have for third-party claims.

You may be able to achieve the same protection at a lower cost by taking out a policy with an online specialist provider of rental car insurance. If you have one of their policies you would simply recover from them any costs debited to your credit card by the rental car company for things such as excess.
The specialist providers may offer you the opportunity to save some money on your rental car insurance. Checking them out further may be a smart move.

Buying rental car excess insurance from one of the Internet based independent car hire insurance suppliers may not only save you some money, but may also provide you with superior cover.

Rental car excess insurance is needed because typically the collision damage waiver (CDW) cover sold by the car hire companies tends to carry an excess.

This ‘excess’ represents the maximum amount of money that you could be expected to contribute to the repair costs of those parts of the car covered by the CDW. The exact figure will depend on the car and the car hire company but figures between £500 and £1600 are not uncommon.

If you add to this the amount that you may have to pay towards the repair costs of those parts of the car typically excluded from the CDW (the roof, tyres, windows and undercarriage) then you could be facing quite a large charge to your credit card.

As an example, during your rental you swerve into a bush to avoid hitting a dog, damage one of the tyres which needs to be replaced and scrape the bodywork quite badly.

You have an excess of £750. When you return the car you find that the paintwork will cost £500 to redo. Since this amount is less that the maximum excess, you are responsible for it all. You are also responsible for the total cost of the type replacement because your CDW doesn’t cover them at all.

You could reduce the risks of incurring expense of this nature by buying some excess insurance and your car hire company will typically be only too happy to sell you some.

Their rental car excess insurance may prove to be expensive when compared to other options and there is no obligation to buy this type of cover from them - which is where the independent specialist providers of rental car insurance come in.

If you have a look at the Internet sites of these specialists, you will find that they offer a wide range of rental car excess insurance products, which offer several features including cover for families and for seniors.

In addition, you may find that their excess insurance will also cover the excluded items at no extra cost. So in our example above the replacement tyre would be covered as well.

A further feature of excess insurance bought from these specialists is that they can provide annual cover. This means that your policy, valid for a year, can be used for any number of rentals you choose. You may only be able to rent one car at a time (up to a specified number of days at a time) and you may not be able to rent certain types of vehicle. (Motor homes, motorbikes, commercial vehicles, very high value cars, sport or vintage models may not be covered.)

Particularly if you are a regular renter, you may end up saving some money, depending of your circumstances.

It works quite simply. If you do have an accident, the car hire company may still charge any excess or charges relating to damage to ‘excluded’ car parts for which you are responsible, to your credit card. All you would have to do then would be to claim on your rental car excess insurance policy for reimbursement.

Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) is a type of insurance cover for rental cars. It can also be known as Collision Damage Waiver (CDW). It typically covers the loss of, and damage to, your hire car and generally includes theft.

While it isn’t really insurance, it works in pretty much the same way. You could look at it from the point of view that since the hire car doesn’t belong to you, you can’t insure it but you are responsible for any damage that happens to it during the period of your rental.

The owners (the car rental company) may typically try to sell you a release from this responsibility known as loss damage waiver. With this they ‘waive’ their right to charge you for repairs.

Cover of this nature is very like insurance in that it typically carries an excess, which is the amount of money that you agree to pay to the car hire company in the event that the hire car is damaged while on rental to you.

In addition to the excess you may find that loss damage waiver excludes the windscreen, the tyres, the roof and the undercarriage from its cover. This means that if you damage any of these parts during your rental then you would still be responsible to pay for their repair. These costs would be separate to any excess charges due for damage to other parts of the car.

If, like many, you feel that the potential expense in these circumstances is unacceptable, then you may choose to buy some excess insurance to top-up the loss damage waiver cover. If you then damaged the car, you would claim on this policy for the excess that you would be responsible for paying.

You may find that the excess insurance offered by the car hire companies is more expensive than that available from other sources. Happily there can be cheaper cover out there which often has the added benefit of covering those excluded parts as well and at no extra cost.

You can find it on the web site of some of the Internet based car hire insurance providers. These specialists can also supply policies specifically tailored for rentals in the UK, Europe, USA or other destinations worldwide.

They also offer longer-term annual cover that may be of special interest if you rent cars frequently. An annual policy would provide you with excess cover for all of your rentals in the course of a year (one at a time of course).

These specialist providers tend not to cover the more exotic makes of car such as sports or vintage models or very high value vehicles.

They can also offer LDW (Loss Damage Waiver) cover for USA rentals (and some other destinations worldwide) that again may be very much cheaper than the cover you could buy at the car rental desk.

You simply buy your policy from the specialists in advance of your rental and take the policy details with you, as your car hire company may need them to contact your insurer if you have an accident.

So, whether you’re looking for loss damage waiver cover, excess cover or both, why not have a look at what these specialist providers have on offer?

To be satisfied with your hire car experience typically involves making sure that you’ve found the right vehicle for your needs at, of course, a good price. Yet making sure that your selection also includes the right sort of insurance for rental cars may also be imperative if you’re to avoid a potential large outlay following an accident.

How could such a situation arise given you have insurance in place?

The problem may arise because of the way some rental cars are described as ‘including insurance in the price’ when they’re advertised. That is perfectly correct as a statement but it may lull you into a full sense of security because in reality you may not be ‘fully covered’ – and there is a difference.

The insurance for rental cars provided by the rental company typically provides a degree of protection in the shape of:

• third party cover that aims to meet the costs of any awards against you for damage you have caused to a third party – either to their person or their property;
• CDW (collision damage waiver) – which will offer financial cover for the costs of any damage done to the hire care while under contract to you (or its theft).

Although this sounds fine, the rental company’s policies may contain two potentially very important points of note:

• typically they will carry an excess of anywhere between £500-£1600,
• they may also exclude a number of significant areas of the vehicle from cover and that means you’ll have to pay for any damage to them – typically including the wheels; tyres, roof, undercarriage and windows.

So, following an accident, the rental company may place some charges against your credit card even if you have their insurance for rental cars covering you.

The good news is that it is possible to reduce the risks of finding such costs facing you after an accident.

This can be done typically through one of two routes.

The first is to purchase ‘top-up’ or ‘Super-CDW’ insurance from the rental company – they will typically offer this to you as part of the car booking and perhaps again when you pick the car up. For an extra cost, this insurance may remove or at least reduce the excess and possibly also provide cover for the ‘exclusions’.

The second route is to purchase what’s called ‘excess insurance’ from an online provider of insurance for rental cars. These specialists offer policies that will allow you to claim back from them any excess or related costs you’ve had to pay to the rental company. They can be cheaper than the similar protection offered by the rental companies.

Such policies may also have the advantage of being available on an annual basis meaning they would cover any rental car hired by you during the period (with some special exceptions such as sports cars etc).

You may be able to find out more information on insurance for rental cars and how you could potentially save money by visiting the website of a specialist provider. A gentle browse through their materials and prices could be time well spent if you’re interested in controlling your costs!

Having a car on hire can sometimes be risky. Even the smallest of accidents could result in you facing potentially large bills for repair costs unless you have the right sort of cover through your insurance for hire cars policy.

Doesn’t insurance for hire cars come included ‘in the deal’?

Really, this is perhaps better thought of as two separate questions:

• does the hire cost include insurance?;
• is the insurance adequate for your needs?

The rental car may or may not come with insurance included in the deal. Typically in most of Europe and many other countries it will have some insurance included, whereas in the USA and some other countries it may not.

If it does not have insurance included, the rental company will typically offer it for sale as an extra. If insurance is included, you may need to look at it carefully to see what is covered and what is not.

What needs to be examined with insurance for hire cars?

Once again, this may vary depending upon the country you’re hiring in and the company you’re using.

When insurance is included, it typically provides financial protection to cover two forms of risk:

• the risks that other people may sue you for injury you have caused them or for damage you’ve done to their property, with the hire car;
• the risk that the car rental company holds you responsible for damage done to their vehicle while on hire to you – this could be up to the full replacement cost of the vehicle.

The first category of risk is covered by third-partly liability insurance and the second by CDW (collision damage waiver) insurance.

If you do not have these two forms of insurance and with both providing adequate levels of cover, you may end up facing potentially large costs if you have an accident in a hire vehicle.

If these two forms of cover are in place, what else is there to worry about?

The insurance provided by a car hire company, whether included automatically or purchased separately, will typically also contain two limitations:

• it may carry an excess of between £500 - £1600 which could end up being debited automatically to your credit card following an accident;
• it may exclude several areas of the rental car from its cover – possibly including wheels, tyres, undercarriage roof and windows.

The upshot is that even if you have the rental company’s insurance for hire cars, you may find yourself facing a large bill after an accident.

Can these cost risks be avoided?

Yes.

You may have the option of paying the hire company extra and for that they may reduce or remove the excess and possibly the exclusions also.

Alternatively, you may find that it can be cheaper to purchase what’s called ‘excess protection insurance’ from an online specialist provider of rental car insurance. If you have a policy of this sort, you could obtain reimbursement of any excess or excluded area costs you’d been forced to pay to the rental company.

Is there more information available?

Yes.

If you’re looking to improve the protection you receive from insurance for hire cars, the sites of the specialist providers typically contain full explanatory details of their products and how they may benefit you.

When you drive your own car there are two main components of insurance that are typically regarded as essential and the same may be true for insurance for car rental.

In the UK, Third Party cover is a compulsory form of insurance for car rental and by law it has to offer unlimited financial protection. The same is generally true for many parts of Europe too.

If you were to injure someone or damage their property in an accident with the hire car while having such having unlimited cover, then any award for damages against you would be covered by your third party insurance. There are no limits on what could be paid. What this means is that this level of cover is sufficient and you shouldn’t have to buy more.

In the USA and some other rental locations worldwide, you may find that there is no Third Party cover included at all and in these circumstances you may want to consider Supplemental Liability Insurance (SLI) to provide you with some insurance against potential claims for damages. It may be worth bearing in mind that without insurance for car rental of this kind you would be personally responsible for paying for any awards against you.

Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) covers damage to the car itself. Basic CDW cover is very often included as part of an all-in package by the car rental companies. (The USA and some other worldwide destinations are again exceptions to this.)

The trouble with this is that typically the rental companies’ insurance will put an excess on the CDW and this is the amount that they may expect you to pay towards any repair damage. Excess amounts may vary but values between £500 and £1600 are common.

The other problem with standard CDW supplied by a car rental company is that certain parts of the car (the windscreen and windows, the tyres, the roof and the undercarriage) are typically excluded from cover. So if any of these were damaged you would have to pay for the repair – in addition to any excess charges for dents or scratches to the paint work for example.

Unsurprisingly, many people may feel that this represents an unacceptable level of risk and expenditure for someone else’s car. Increasing your levels of insurance for car rental with some excess insurance may help keep risks down.

Excess insurance cover or Super CDW as it is sometimes known, is a policy against which you can make a claim should you be charged excess by the car rental company.

There are a number of places where you can buy insurance of this type including the car hire company itself. However, you may find that the policies of some of the Internet based independent insurance providers may be cheaper than those of the car hire companies. In addition, their policies may also include those “excluded” parts of the car at no extra cost.

If you have a look at some of the web sites you will find a wide range of products for driving in the UK, Europe, the USA and elsewhere in the world.

They can cater for groups of family or friends and if you are a regular renter you may find an annual policy to be of particular interest.

As with all insurance for car rental there are likely to be conditions attached so you may want to have a look at these to reassure yourself that you have the right cover for your needs.

Discount auto insurance solutions are ideal for those who are looking for cheap and best deals. In order to avail discount auto insurance solutions - insurance agents, online resources and corporate solutions can help the insurers.

Especially in the arena of low economic activity marked with poor lending capacities, auto insurance companies offer discounts. However, onus of selecting the right auto insurance deal lied on the insurer. In order to avail best discount auto insurance deals risk coverage should not be compromised at any stance. With the growing competition in the industry insurance companies are forced to offer competitive insurance deals to the insurers.

New vehicles, driver’s with good on-road record and age factors generally draw better discount auto insurance solutions. The prime benefit of a discount auto insurance solution is the low cost of insurance premium and competitive interest rate.

Before buying any discount auto insurance solution care must be taken to ensure that the parameters of policy claim and premium options are clearly sought out after. Reliable insurance services providers generally offer discount auto insurance solutions a lot often than the new ones. In quest to win more customer base and sustain in the competitive market these strategies are a must.

Discount auto insurance deals can also be sought out after if trying to insure for more than one vehicle. Service providers might offer bulk discounts to insurers on the go. Discount auto insurance solutions could also be clubbed with schemes and offers on vehicle maintenance.

Best time to avail a discount auto insurance solution is not during the insurance renewal window but a lot earlier than that. Insurance agents and other services providers can provide better discounts when sufficient time is on hands.

One should not miss out on the discount auto insurance solutions deals if floated around by a reliable service provider. They can provide great solutions for risk coverage and on competitive premium rates. As far as possible rates should be renegotiated even after availing the discount auto insurance deals. This strategy will provide maximum benefit to the insurers each time they wish to take an auto insurance policy.

When you hire a car, the insurance cover may vary depending upon the rental company that you’re using and the country you’ve decided to rent in. As insurance for car hire could make the difference between an accident being a minor inconvenience or a large outlay, learning a little more about it might be a good idea.

Insurance for car hire

In the USA and a few other countries, the price you pay for the hire car will typically include little if any insurance. It may be offered for sale as an optional extra by the rental company or alternatively, purchased from an online specialist provider of rental car excess insurance. The latter option can sometimes turn out cheaper.

In many other countries including the UK and much of Europe, the rental car’s hire price should include some components of insurance.

‘In the price’ insurance for car hire

Typically car rental insurance covers two forms of risk through two types of insurance:

• third party liability – to financially cover claims from other parties that have suffered personal injury or damage to their property;
• collision damage waiver (CDW) – to offer financial protection against claims from the car hire company arising from any damage the hire car may have sustained while you have it on hire.

In some countries, the ‘in the price’ insurance may only include third party liability. In others it may also provide a basic form of CDW.

Limitations of ‘in the price’ insurance

It may be advisable to check the insurance for car hire that is part of the rental cost as:

• the rental company’s policy may contain a large excess of between £500 and £1600 – that amount could be charged to your credit card following an accident as your contribution to the insurance claim costs;
• the CDW may exclude several important areas of the vehicle from its cover notably the wheels, tyres, windows, roof and undercarriage.

If you find these to be the case, you may decide that you are not entirely comfortable with the large financial risk presented. If so, you may wish to consider additional insurance to cover these ‘gaps’.

Additional insurance protection

The hire company may offer you something they call ‘top-up cover’ or possibly ‘Super-CDW’. This is essentially additional insurance, which means they will reduce or remove the excess. It is also possible that they will remove the ‘exclusions’ and cover all areas of the vehicle.

An alternative source for this protection is the specialist providers of rental car insurance that you can find on the Internet.

They offer a product typically called ‘excess insurance’ which will pay you back any sums you need to pay the rental company for excess or damage to excluded areas following an accident.

The policies provided by the specialists are typically cheaper that the ‘top-up’ insurance offered by the rental companies and they may also offer superior cover.

Finding out more

The web sites of the specialist providers of insurance for car hire typically contain full details of their products. Looking at one of their sites may be time well spent as it may be able to save you money.