There are two main components of car rental insurance cover. The first covers loss or damage to the rental car itself (damage liability waiver) and the second covers damage caused by the rental car to someone else or their property or car (third party)
Damage liability waiver can also sometimes be known as collision damage waiver or loss damage waiver. It is like insurance but on a technicality - it’s not really!
Generally, when you rent a car the rental company holds you responsible for any damage, loss, theft etc to the car. If you then buy damage liability waiver from the car rental company you ‘waive’ your responsibility for the damage and pass it back to them or to the company that supplies the waiver. It’s how any damage to the car will be paid for. So it acts like an insurance policy and for most people the fact that it isn’t doesn’t really make any difference.
Damage liability waiver will generally come with exclusions and excess which are costs that you would be responsible for within the terms of the cover. The exclusions are normally the tyres, windscreen, roof and undercarriage and without additional insurance damage to these areas would have to be paid for by you.
The excess is also known as the deductible and is that part of any costs not covered by the policy that you have to pay. As an example if there were an excess of 750 pounds and damage to the car of 500 pounds then you would pay 500. If the damage amounted to 1000 pounds then you would pay 750 pounds and the insurance company would pay 250 pounds.
You can buy additional insurance to remove or at least reduce the excess. The car rental company will almost certainly offer to sell you an excess insurance policy to cover any excess charges on the damage liability waiver.
You will find that this is a very expensive way of obtaining this type of cover and you may think it useful to shop around some of the independent insurance providers, many of whom have outlets on the Internet.
These independent insurance companies specialise in this type of insurance and you may find that they can offer prices which are considerably cheaper than those available from the car rental companies.
Their damage liability waiver policies may even be able to include cover for those exclusions in the rental company’s cover so you can have complete peace of mind when motoring.
They not only offer cost advantages but also increased flexibility. As they sell their policies to a policyholder for a period of days or a year, it will cover all rental vehicles driven during the lifetime of the policy. This may be very cost-advantageous and could also save a lot of time at the car collection desk for those people that rent regularly. It’s certainly worth a quick look at their sites to discover more. You could end up with better cover at a considerably lower price.
Tags: Damage Liability Waiver