Archive for the 'Super CDW' Category
Super CDW is a rather odd sounding term used to describe a form of additional insurance that relates to rented cars.
When you hire a car, you’ll probably see mention of CDW. This stands for Collision Damage Waiver (and is confusingly also sometimes called loss damage waiver). CDW is a form of insurance that covers damage arising to the rented vehicle while in your care. It is sometimes included in the basic rental price by the car rental company or it may not be in which case they will usually endeavour to sell it to you as an advisable optional extra.
It’s worth keeping in mind that if you are driving a rented car and have declined CDW, then any accident damage would need to be paid for by you. The costs could be up to the replacement cost of the vehicle itself so some form of this insurance is always a very good idea.
The position with CDW and Super CDW can become a little confusing. This has its origins in the way basic CDW is sold or included in the price by the car rental companies.
The rental company’s basic CDW policy is very likely to be limited in terms of the protection it provides in two important ways. Firstly it will almost certainly contain excess. The excess is stated as a financial amount, usually between 500 and 1500 pounds that the rental company will expect you as the renter to contribute as the ‘first part’ of the costs of any accidents. In other words, if you have 750 pounds excess and a claim for damage to 1500 pounds cost, the rental company will debit the first 750 pounds of that 1500 pounds to your credit card. If the claim were for 400 pounds, you would have to pay it all.
Secondly, you will probably find that the basic CDW excludes damage to several specified areas of the car such as wheel, tyres, roof, undercarriage and windows. So even with CDW insurance in place, you could still be facing large repair costs following an accident.
As many renters find the risks here to be unacceptable, the car rental companies may offer additional ‘top-up’ insurance to cover these risks. The excess could be eliminated totally and cover extended to normally excluded areas of the vehicle. They may or may not call this Super CDW.
Unfortunately the car rental company’s insurance and their top-up insurance can prove very expensive when compared to that purchasable from the direct insurance providers over the Internet. In fact you are under no obligation to purchase car rental insurance from the rental company and you can purchase Super CDW insurance from the direct providers.
These policies purchased directly can offer you real peace of mind. Even if you have taken the car rental company’s basic insurance, you can use your directly purchased Super CDW to cover you for the risks of excess charges or payments for repairs to areas of the rented car that the rental company have excluded from cover. The rental company may still debit your credit card for these costs but you could claim reimbursement of them from your direct insurance company.
The Super CDW purchased directly like this is usually several times cheaper than that sold by the rental companies. It also is purchasable for a period of days or even a year. That means that during the life of a policy it would cover you for any rental car you drove (subject to terms and conditions). That could save you a lot of money indeed – particularly if you rent regularly. It may be worth finding out more!
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.