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.
Tags: Daily Car Hire Insurance