In order to ensure that you are fully covered to drive your rental car you may want to consider taking out CDW Excess Insurance.
With a typical CDW or Collision Damage Waiver policy, you may find that there are still excess costs for which you would be liable in the event of the rental car being damaged.
These costs can be high, as excesses can range from between 500 and 1500 pounds. So for example if there is an excess of 750 pounds on your CDW policy and your rental car suffers damage that is going to cost 800 pounds to repair, then you would be liable to pay 750 pounds. If the damage were valued at 500 pounds you would have to pay the total amount.
Car rental companies will offer to sell you CDW Excess insurance to remove or at least reduce the amount of your excess. They will normally quote the costs of this insurance as a daily rate for the duration of your rental and this can amount to a considerable sum being added on to the total cost of the rental.
Typical CDW policies also tend to exclude damage to certain parts of the car from their cover. These are areas like the windscreen, roof, undercarriage and tyres, which are also the most likely to suffer damage. Even if you take out an excess insurance policy, you may find that you are still liable to meet the cost of damage to any of these areas.
There is an alternative to the CDW Excess Insurance offered by the car rental companies. There are a number of independent insurance companies who specialise in car rental and CDW excess insurance and you may find it worthwhile to compare their costs and levels of cover against those of the car rental companies. Even if your CDW cover has been provided by the car rental company it is still possible to look elsewhere for top up or excess insurance and you may be surprised at how much cheaper it can be.
There are a number of other advantages apart from cost savings. CDW Excess policies from independent companies often include cover for those easily damaged ‘exclusions’ providing additional peace of mind that there will be no unforeseen costs to meet.
The independent companies can supply CDW excess insurance cover on a daily basis but also as an annual policy, which can be used again and again over the course of the year. Provided you meet their conditions on the types of car that can be rented (no vintage models, sports cars or cars of very high value etc) then an annual policy could save you a lot of money particularly if you intend to rent a car more than once in the yearly period.
They have CDW Excess insurance policies available for most worldwide rental locations including the UK and have products suitable for all age ranges.
If you have independent insurance and your rental car is damaged, the rental company will charge the costs to your credit card. All you have to do for reimbursement is to claim on your CDW Excess Insurance policy.
Tags: CDW Excess Insurance