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.

When renting a car, most people wish to be sure adequate insurance is in place. SLI stands for Supplemental Liability Insurance. It is one component of the insurance available for rental cars and it exists to increase the insurance cover available to deal with third party claims.

To understand why SLI may be useful, it is necessary to consider the three main categories of car rental insurance cover as they are usually described.

These are usually described in relation to the risks they protect the renter against. Third party liability insurance is there to cover claims arising from a third party who the car renter has injured in an accident or who has had their property damaged by the rented vehicle. Theft, as the name implies, insures the rented vehicle against being stolen. CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) provides insurance against damage caused to the rented car.

All these elements of rental car insurance are important. In some countries a basic form of all these insurances may be included in the basic rental car price or in others (notably the USA) they may not be and the car rental company will endeavour to sell them to the renter separately as optional extras. Whether they were included in the rental price or purchased separately from the rental company, there is a strong possibility that they will offer only limited cover.

In the case of the basic third-party liability insurance that is taken from car rental companies, this will often be capped at a maximum payout level (although this does not apply in the UK where this insurance must be unlimited by law). If the third party liability insurance is capped at an unrealistically low level, this may constitute a massive financial risk for the renter.

That’s because if a third party is badly injured in an accident, a court may make very large damage awards against the renter. To put this into clear context – if the liability insurance of the basic car rental company’s policy is capped at 100,000 US dollars but a court awards sums significantly higher than this in damages, then the renter will be left needing to find the difference.

The position with regard to the financial risks for the renter here are complex and will vary depending upon what hire company is being used and what country the rental is taking place in. Even so, it is clear that the costs here could potentially be ruinous if the insurance limits are set too low.

This is where SLI operates. SLI is a form of insurance that can be taken out to increase the maximum amounts payable under third party liability cover in the sad event of an accident. It can be purchased from the car rental company as an additional option but this can prove to be very expensive when compared to other routes.

There are direct insurance companies that also offer SLI, usually also over the Internet. These companies will provide an SLI policy that will increase the cover available often up to a maximum level of 1 million US dollars. As they are sold on a daily or annual basis, they will also cover the renter for all vehicles rented during the period, with the exception of some categories of car such as sports or those that have a very high value such as prestige marques of over 100,000 pounds in value.

Investigating the SLI policies sold by the direct insurers may give the renter confidence and peace of mind at an affordable price.

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.