Protect Your Excess

This blog looks at the importance of European car rental insurance. Europe is one of the most popular holiday destinations for many Brits, and with good reason – it has something for everyone. Whether you’re looking for sun and sangria or a bit of culture, there are a thousand different possibilities open to you from many different countries.

If staying in one place isn’t quite enough for you, though, you might be tempted to hire a car for the duration of your stay, and explore the continent a little bit. If you do, though, you’re going to need to make sure you have adequate car rental insurance, which can often be a complex business due to the massive amount of variety that providers can offer. Unlike countries like the USA and Canada, a basic European car rental insurance policy is usually included in the cost of your hire car, but this is likely to be very basic indeed, and so many people choose to purchase extra cover to protect themselves financially.

Outside of your basic insurance package, many providers offer what’s known as supplemental liability insurance, or SLI. SLI packages generally work by reducing the excess on your policy to a more manageable level. The excess on a car rental insurance policy works in much the same way as it does for any other type of insurance – it’s the amount you pay towards a repair bill before the insurance company starts covering you for the rest of it (that is, if your excess was £100, you’d pay £100 of any repair bill before the insurance company chipped in a penny). Unfortunately for anyone planning on hiring abroad, the excess on European car rental insurance policies is usually set very high, often up to £1000. This is far higher than you’d expect on an equivalent policy in the UK, and represents a serious chunk of money for the average policymaker.

Understandably, then, many people are keen to see this cut down. If you choose to purchase an SLI policy, such as collision damage waiver insurance, you can find that your excess will typically go down the more cover you choose to buy; if you plump for the ‘Super CDW’ cover offered by many insurance providers, you could even see your excess removed entirely.

However, these policies can rapidly become quite expensive, as they are charged on a day to day basis and soon add up to a significant sum. One way to beat this is to book your insurance online before you get to your destination. Most online providers who specialise in European car rental insurance will allow you to book either day by day cover (for the specific amount of time you plan on renting a car) or annual policies that will cover you for twelve months on every hire car you rent in that time.

The latter will generally be cheaper if you plan on renting more than one car in that period or will be renting one car for a sustained length of time (for example, if you’re driving cross-continent), but either way you’ll probably find that booking your European car rental insurance online will save you money, giving you a little bit more to spend on your simple holiday or grand European adventure.

If you’re looking to hire a car the next time you go abroad, you might be surprised by the incredible complexity of the insurance packages most providers will offer. However, if you do want to hit the road and explore the local (or not so local) area, you’re going to need it; even though it generally doesn’t come bundled-in with your car rental package in places like the USA, they will insist you have some cover before you drive your car off the lot. This can increase the cost of renting a car dramatically, but what’s often worse is the raft of optional policies car hire companies throw at you, including CDW and other forms of daily car hire excess insurance. What do they do? How do you know which ones are worth the money, and which ones (if any) you can afford to do without?

Most of the additional insurance policies are what’s known as daily car hire excess insurance, or supplemental liability insurance, and aim to reduce the amount you’d pay out in excess should you be involved in an accident while you’re driving a rental care. The excess on a policy is defined as the amount you’re contractually obligated to pay out towards repair bills before the insurance company takes over – an excess of, say, £200 means that you’ll pay the first £200 of any repair bill, and the insurance provider will deal with the rest. Unfortunately for those of you planning to rent a car, the excess tends to be set much higher than on your insurance policy back home, and it’s not uncommon to see excesses in the region of £800-1000, or even more. Purchasing daily car hire excess insurance, normally in the form of what’s known as a collision damage waiver policy, will allow you to cut down this excess (although, unless it’s a more expensive ‘Super CDW’ policy, it’s unlikely it will be able to remove your excess completely). However, these additional policies are often in the region of a couple of pounds a day on top of your standard car hire price, and so could end up costing you a not insubstantial amount of money that could be better spent on the business of your holiday – namely enjoying yourself.

One alternative to paying the inflated over the counter prices is to buy online. Checking around the internet for bargains on your insurance is just as valid for car rental cover as it is for anything else, and could save you a good deal of money. While it’s possible to get annual cover (where you’ll be covered on all hire cars you rent for twelve months in return for one payment), you might find it cheaper to still order day by day cover for the amount of time you plan on renting a car for, especially if you don’t plan on travelling abroad or renting a car more than once in that period.

Whatever you choose, daily car hire excess insurance can help put your mind at rest regarding your rental car excess, and let you focus on having fun on your holiday, knowing that you won’t find yourself liable for a huge bill should the car you’re driving be involved in some kind of accident while it’s signed into your name.

Hiring a car abroad can be a tricky business. Even before you get used to the nuances of driving in a foreign country, you might find yourself struggling to work out exactly how much insurance you need to purchase with your hire care. While in some countries, a basic package is bundled in with the cost of hiring the car itself, other countries (most notably the USA) insist that you purchase it separately. Either way, if you want to drive your hire car, you’re going to need some form of daily car hire insurance – and as a result, you’re going to have to sift through all of the extraneous ‘optional’ policies to work out which is the right one for you. Of course, this can take a great deal of time, which is the last thing you want when you’re about to start your holiday. So what can you do?

Well, most car hire companies will offer you the opportunity to take out additional policies in order to protect yourself further, but most people tend to look for services that reduce the excess they’d pay should the car be involved in a collision or theft. The excess is defined as the amount you pay towards any repair bill before the insurance company takes over; if the excess is set at £300 and the repair bill comes to £400, you’ll pay everything up to the excess and the insurance company will take up the remaining £100. Unfortunately for people planning on renting a car, however, it’s not unusual for the excess on hire cars to be set extremely high, making the potential cost of daily car hire insurance quite substantial.

The only way around this, if you’re unhappy with the possibility of having to pay such a large fee in case you have an accident, is to take out an additional policy designed to reduce your excess. This is commonly known as collision damage waiver insurance (or CDW), but there are a number of different types available.

It’s important to note that it won’t completely remove your excess – unless you opt for a ‘Super’ CDW package, which generally will set your excess to zero, leaving the insurance company entirely liable for any repair bill – and, due it being paid by the day, can rapidly build up to be quite expensive. One way out of this cost is to book daily car hire insurance online before you get to your destination.

Planning a little way ahead, especially if you know you’re planning on renting a car once you get abroad, can save you a lot of time. Daily car hire insurance will help you lower your excess for an often very reasonable fee, and allows you to make sure you don’t book additional policies you don’t need. Additionally, you can purchase annual insurance packages as well as day-by-day cover, which can save you even more money. Either way, this can allow you to get your car hire insurance out of the way before you start your holiday, and save you both time and money.

If you’re looking to go abroad in the near future and think you might be interested in hiring a car, you’re going to need to consider how you’re going to arrange the insurance. In many countries, standard insurance packages are lumped in with the car deal, but this isn’t always the case – and even if it is, there are often a great many additional policies available (such as day to say or annual car hire excess insurance) that can confuse the average buyer. How do you know which ones are worth buying, and which aren’t?

Generally speaking, these additional policies fall under the umbrella term of supplementary liability insurance, or SLI, and work as a means of lowering the excess that is attached to your rental car insurance policy. The excess on a hire car works in much the same way as an excess on any other type of insurance – if it’s set at, for example, £150 and the repair bill after an accident comes to £200, you’ll be liable for the first £150 and the insurance company will pay the remaining £50.

One of the downsides of renting a car abroad is that the excess attached to the basic insurance policy you sign up for is likely to be much higher than it might be back in the UK, for your usual automobile. It’s not unusual to find excesses on policies that run to between £800 and £1000, and sometimes even more than that – a sum of money that could cause a real financial burden for many people.

Car hire excess insurance (or, more specifically, collision damage waiver insurance) will allow you to shrink your excess to more manageable levels; indeed, if you get a ‘Super CDW’ insurance policy, you could even cut it down altogether. The downside to this approach is that it’s often very expensive – even though CDW cover might only come to a few pounds a day, that’s on top of the cost of renting a car in the first place, and as such it might build up to a considerable amount of money over the course of even a short holiday.

One way to beat this is to book annual car hire excess insurance online before you even set foot on a plan. Annual car hire excess insurance allows you to book an SLI policy that will last for a full twelve months, and will cover you for any hire car you rent in that time. As such, it’s especially useful for people who plan on going on holiday and renting a car more than once in that time, or people who have to go abroad and rent cars for business fairly regularly. While it’s also possible to book daily SLI policies online, annual car hire excess insurance is likely to work out cheaper for at least some people, and so it’s important to do a comparison. Either way, you’ll likely find savings by booking online, freeing up some of your hard earned cash and allowing you to have the peace of mind that comes with car hire excess insurance without costing you a fortune.

Just what is annual car hire insurance? Hiring a car is often the best way to see the sights when you’re on holiday. Whether you want to go exploring, find it difficult to see all the sights using public transport, or merely want to avoiding running up a massive expenditure on cab fares, hiring a car is often a great excuse to really get to know wherever it is you’re choosing to vacation.

However, that’s not to say it’s always simple; the last thing you want when you’re just about to start your holiday is to spend time at a hire centre counter trying to work out which form of insurance is best for you. Despite this, many people find the huge variety in cover plans extremely complicated, often leading them to spend money unnecessarily on cover that they don’t really need, when they might be better off with an annual car hire insurance package instead.

Car rental insurance works in a similar way to any car insurance: it’s a way of making sure that you don’t end up being entirely responsible for the repair bill, which could end up costing you an absolute fortune otherwise. However, the excess attached to rental policies is normally far higher than you’d expect to find on a standard car insurance policy such as the one you have on your vehicle back home.

An excess is the amount of money you’re expected to pay before the insurance starts paying – say you have an excess of £100, you’d pay the first £100 of any repair costs, and the insurance company would pay the remainder. For car rental insurance purposes, the excess is usually much higher (often up to a thousand pounds), which means that any damage to the car could end up costing you a lot of money, as your standard package might not be adequate to keep you covered.

Annual car hire insurance is often a good way of making sure you have a sufficient level of protection before you set off on holiday. It’s usually purchased online, and as such assumes you know you’re going to be renting a car before you get to your destination, but will allow you to cut down your excess to a much more manageable level.

Annual car hire insurance means that you can book yourself a CDW (collision damage waiver) insurance policy that will apply to any cars you rent for a year; while this can work out more expensive than getting day-by-day cover over the internet, it can save you an absolute fortune if you plan on renting more than one car abroad in any twelvemonth period. Additionally, it’s important to note that it’s generally massively cheaper than trying to get the same cover over the counter once you reach your destination, and so a little foresight could go a long way.

Whether you choose to get annual car hire insurance or a day by day package, it can be a great way to make sure you don’t end up paying a massive excess charge should you be involved in an accident, which can help to put your mind at rest and really allow you to enjoy your holiday.

No one wants to imagine the difficulties that would come about as a result of being involved in an accident in a rental car, but it could be so much worse if you were on holiday in a foreign country while it happened. Although it’s a great way to see the sights and explore the local area, you do have to make sure you’re properly insured if you decide to hire a car, and that can often mean sifting through a large number of strange and alien-sounding policy extras (such as Super CDW cover), trying to find one that sounds both affordable and suitable – not an ideal way to spend the first hours of your holiday.

However, there are options available that can help you reduce the amount of excess you’d need to pay if you were to be involved in an accident of some sort. An excess – the amount your insurance company will expect you to pay towards repairs if you’re involved in an accident – is most likely going to be attached to the basic insurance package you get with your rental car, and it’s typically going to be a lot higher than the excess you have on your car insurance back home; it’s not unusual to find excesses on rental cars around the thousand pound mark, and sometimes more. One way of cutting this down is to purchase CDW cover.

Collision Damage Waiver insurance is an optional package offered by many insurance providers that is designed to reduce (or, in the case of the more expensive Super CDW packages available, remove completely) your excess, meaning that you’ll pay far less or nothing at all should the car be damaged while it’s signed over into your name. However, it’s important that these additional cover packages are charged on a day by day basis, meaning that (especially for Super CDW cover) you could be looking at a large bill at the end of your holiday.

One way to make sure you don’t fall victim to this (if you’re looking to buy a Super CDW policy) is to use an online collision damage waiver insurance provider before you even get to your destination. This can be cheaper (and save you precious time as well, as you don’t have to worry about the best type of insurance cover for you when you could be out enjoying yourself), and typically comes in two options – either a short term plan, which will allow you to purchase your cover by the day or week, or an annual plan, designed for people who plan on renting cars abroad more than once a year. While annual cover can at first seem more expensive, it can save you a substantial amount of money if you plan on utilising a rental company more than once in that time.

Whichever way you choose to get your Super CDW insurance (if you choose to get it at all), it can be a great way to ensure peace of mind and make sure that you don’t end up paying out more than you can afford should you have an accident.

There are many things about foreign lands that Brits find confusing, specifically when it comes to motoring – driving on the other side of the road, for example, or knowing when to give way. Before all that becomes an issue, however, you’ll need to find yourself a set of wheels, and that can be equally complicated. Renting a car abroad might seem relatively simple, but you’ll often find yourself faced with a flood of optional extra cover SLI packages that aim to help keep you financially secure in case of accident or theft – but may just end up leaving you confused.

If you want to rent a car, it’s vital to look at the excess that comes attached to it. The excess for rental cars works in much the same as it does other vehicles – it’s the amount you have to pay towards a claim before the insurances picks up the rest of the bill. This can be very high for rental cars, occasionally up to a thousand pounds or more. Not many people would be able to pay that much money out against an accident with any ease, especially if they weren’t to blame, and as such a lot of people choose to take out an optional SLI policy.

Supplemental liability insurance, or SLI, is a broad name that encompasses several types of optional extra insurance packages, all designed to give you a greater amount of cover than the standard package you can expect will come bundled in with your hire car. This can include policies such as Collision Damage Waiver insurance (or CDW), as well as Theft Protection Insurance – and the ‘Super’ varieties that offer you a greater deal of protection still. SLI policies work by cutting your excess down to a more manageable level, meaning that you’re more likely to be able to afford to pay for any repair bills without breaking a hole in your wallet trying to do so. The Super SLI packages can even reduce your excess to zero, but these are likely to be expensive (and, as they’re added up daily, rather than as a lump sum, it could give you a particularly large bill at the end).

If you plan ahead, especially if you can be sure you’re going to hire a car once you get to your destination, can cut down on your SLI bills. There are many SLU providers online who will allow you to book extra cover before you get to wherever it is you’re holidaying, which can help you to shrink your excess for reasonable and affordable fee. SLI bought online can be bought in annual insurance packages in addition to day-by-day cover, saving you still more money if you decide to hire more than one car in a year.

No matter how you choose to purchase your SLI cover, it can be a fantastic way to ensure you keep some peace of mind and know you’re protected on the off-chance you do have an accident while you’re driving a hire car in a foreign country.

Many people choose to hire a car when they go abroad, and it’s not difficult to see why. With an entirely new area to explore, it’s not unusual for people to want to go a little bit further than the hotel bar and experience the sights, sounds and culture of this strange new world for themselves. However, while many places might offer you a fairly good deal on car rental, it’s common to see a long and often confusing list of optional ‘extras’ that you might be tempted by, such as CDW insurance. But how do you know which ones to get, and which ones can you safely disregard in favour of keeping a little bit more spending money?

If you’re planning on renting a car, one of the most important things to consider is the excess that comes bundled with it. The excess for rental cars is very much the same as it is for standard UK vehicles – it’s the amount you pay against a claim before the insurances takes over. Unfortunately, this is often extremely high for hire cars, sometimes in the region of a thousand pounds. Few people would feel comfortable (or even be financially able) to pay that much money against an accident, especially if it wasn’t their fault, and as a result many people choose to take out CDW insurance as an extra precaution.

CDW insurance (also known as a collision damage waiver) is a policy designed to remove some of the excess associated with renting a car. For a premium, it’s possible to shrink the excess in order to ensure that you’re not liable for nearly as much money should you have an accident. Despite this, most CDW insurance policies won’t protect you entirely from having an excess (although many providers now offer a ‘Super CDW’ policy, aimed at removing your excess completely). Whichever you choose, it’s important to remember that the more you pay, the less you’re liable for in case of an accident, but also that these costs can rapidly mount up, especially if you’re planning on renting for several weeks.

One alternative that’s rapidly increasing in popularity is to purchase insurance before you even go on holiday. There are literally dozens of providers that will allow you to make sure you have CDW insurance, either via phone or online, and this can often work out much cheaper than buying it at the counter of the hire shop at your destination. As a general rule, it comes either as a day-by-day policy (based on the number of days you’re hiring the car for) or as an annual cover. While this last one might end up being more expensive if you’re only renting for a short period of time, it’s especially useful for those who expect to rent cars abroad more than once a year, or those who plan on keeping their rental car for longer than two weeks or so. Either way, booking online can save you both money and time, and allow you to maintain your peace of mind while you drive.

If you’re thinking about hiring a car while on holiday (as a lot of people do), you might want to consider budgeting just that little bit more than you’d originally anticipated. It can turn out to be a very expensive affair and, while it might be worth it to have the freedom to explore your new location, many people find themselves shocked and confused by the procedures involved in renting a car in a foreign country, including the difficulties you might find when trying to get extra cover (such as collision damage waiver insurance).

Despite this, there are many similarities between rental car insurance and its more common counterpart. The excess is one of the most important things to consider when looking for insurance – that is to say, the amount you have to pay on any claim before your insurance company picks up the rest of the bill (if, for example, you have a crash and the repair bill comes to £250 with a £100, you’ll pay the first £100 and the insurance will pay for the rest; if it’s less than £100, you’ll pay it all). However, it’s generally much higher for rental cars, and it’s not at all uncommon to find excesses around the thousand pound mark. This is a huge amount of money, and one that many drivers feel uncomfortable being liable for.

As such, many people choose to take out collision damage waiver insurance, or CDW insurance. This is a policy that aims to lower your excess by charging you a daily premium – in effect making you pay up-front for not crashing the rental car. As a rule, the more you pay, the lower your excess will become (the the point where a fairly expensive ‘super’ collision damage waiver insurance policy will remove it completely), but this can often work out to be extremely expensive, especially if you consider that it’s added on per day of cover you need.

An alternative to buying your cover at the counter is to make sure you’ve organised it via an online collision damage waiver insurance provider before you even set off on your holidays. This can work out cheaper (and save time as well, as you don’t have to worry about figuring out complicated insurance forms while you should be focusing on enjoying the beaches and sunshine), and typically comes in two options – either a short term plan, which will allow you to purchase your cover by the day or week, or a long term annual plan, aimed at people who rent cars abroad on a fairly regular basis (at least more than once a year). While the latter can sound expensive, twelve months’ worth of cover is a long time, and it can save you quite a hefty sum of money if you think you’ll be using the services of a rental company more than once.

Whichever you choose, collision damage waiver insurance can be a good way to keep some peace of mind when driving abroad, allowing you to forget about spending a fortune on repairs if you crash and instead giving you the opportunity to focus on having fun on your holiday.

If you’re planning on renting a car during your next holiday, you can expect it to cost you a hefty chunk of your spending money. Although it’s a great way to go off the beaten track and really explore the area you’re holidaying in (and can make things so much easier if you’re travelling with children, or just really don’t fancy walking or catching a taxi everywhere), it’s easy to run up quite a substantial bill for the privilege of having a set of wheels – and that’s not made any better by the flood of additional fees and charges you might find yourself faced with at the rental counter if you decide to purchase CDW, or another type of liability insurance.

When you’re looking at renting a car, you need to look at the excess its insurance comes linked to. An excess works in exactly the same way for hire cars as it does on standard motor insurance – you agree to pay the first however-much (say, £250) of any repair bill, and the insurer is liable to pay the rest. While this can save you a lot of money in the long run, especially if you’re involved in an accident, it’s also very little use to you if you only have a small accident that is relatively cheap to repair. Worse still, the excess on most foreign car hire insurance policies is astronomically high, which could leave you severely out of pocket should anything happen to the car.

The solution to this comes in the form of an additional extra policy, known as a collision damage waiver, or CDW. A CDW is designed to reduce your excess, meaning that you pay less if you accidentally damage the care while it’s signed over in your name. This usually won’t completely eliminate the excess (although if you shell out a little bit extra for what’s commonly known as a Super CDW policy, it might be possible to cut it down to zero). Of course, this will cost you, and it can often be hugely expensive.

It’s usually a cheaper option to buy your car rental insurance online before you even set foot on an aeroplane. Thanks to the internet, there are dozens of providers able and willing to offer you this service, and it will almost certainly work out cheaper than buying the equivalent cover over the counter at your destination. Additionally, you’ll be able to research the policy before you buy it, and not feel like you’re wasting your precious holiday time sorting out insurance when you could be out having fun. It’s possible to buy either day by day cover or an annual policy, which will keep you covered against damage to any car you rent for a twelve month period. While this might not be suitable for everyone, it can save you a lot of money if you plan on renting foreign cars abroad more than once in this period, and don’t want to shell out for separate CDW cover every time.

In short, you don’t have to let the search for reasonably-priced CDW insurance spoil your holiday; reductions on your rental insurance package could be just a click away.