To be satisfied with your hire car experience typically involves making sure that you’ve found the right vehicle for your needs at, of course, a good price. Yet making sure that your selection also includes the right sort of insurance for rental cars may also be imperative if you’re to avoid a potential large outlay following an accident.
How could such a situation arise given you have insurance in place?
The problem may arise because of the way some rental cars are described as ‘including insurance in the price’ when they’re advertised. That is perfectly correct as a statement but it may lull you into a full sense of security because in reality you may not be ‘fully covered’ – and there is a difference.
The insurance for rental cars provided by the rental company typically provides a degree of protection in the shape of:
- third party cover that aims to meet the costs of any awards against you for damage you have caused to a third party – either to their person or their property;
- CDW (collision damage waiver) – which will offer financial cover for the costs of any damage done to the hire care while under contract to you (or its theft).
Although this sounds fine, the rental company’s policies may contain two potentially very important points of note:
- typically they will carry an excess of anywhere between £500-£1600,
- they may also exclude a number of significant areas of the vehicle from cover and that means you’ll have to pay for any damage to them – typically including the wheels; tyres, roof, undercarriage and windows.
So, following an accident, the rental company may place some charges against your credit card even if you have their insurance for rental cars covering you.
The good news is that it is possible to reduce the risks of finding such costs facing you after an accident.
This can be done typically through one of two routes.
The first is to purchase ‘top-up’ or ‘Super-CDW’ insurance from the rental company – they will typically offer this to you as part of the car booking and perhaps again when you pick the car up. For an extra cost, this insurance may remove or at least reduce the excess and possibly also provide cover for the ‘exclusions’.
The second route is to purchase what’s called ‘excess insurance’ from an online provider of insurance for rental cars. These specialists offer policies that will allow you to claim back from them any excess or related costs you’ve had to pay to the rental company. They can be cheaper than the similar protection offered by the rental companies.
Such policies may also have the advantage of being available on an annual basis meaning they would cover any rental car hired by you during the period (with some special exceptions such as sports cars etc).
You may be able to find out more information on insurance for rental cars and how you could potentially save money by visiting the website of a specialist provider. A gentle browse through their materials and prices could be time well spent if you’re interested in controlling your costs!