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.
Tags: CDW explained