Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) is a type of insurance cover for rental cars. It can also be known as Collision Damage Waiver (CDW). It typically covers the loss of, and damage to, your hire car and generally includes theft.
While it isn’t really insurance, it works in pretty much the same way. You could look at it from the point of view that since the hire car doesn’t belong to you, you can’t insure it but you are responsible for any damage that happens to it during the period of your rental.
The owners (the car rental company) may typically try to sell you a release from this responsibility known as loss damage waiver. With this they ‘waive’ their right to charge you for repairs.
Cover of this nature is very like insurance in that it typically carries an excess, which is the amount of money that you agree to pay to the car hire company in the event that the hire car is damaged while on rental to you.
In addition to the excess you may find that loss damage waiver excludes the windscreen, the tyres, the roof and the undercarriage from its cover. This means that if you damage any of these parts during your rental then you would still be responsible to pay for their repair. These costs would be separate to any excess charges due for damage to other parts of the car.
If, like many, you feel that the potential expense in these circumstances is unacceptable, then you may choose to buy some excess insurance to top-up the loss damage waiver cover. If you then damaged the car, you would claim on this policy for the excess that you would be responsible for paying.
You may find that the excess insurance offered by the car hire companies is more expensive than that available from other sources. Happily there can be cheaper cover out there which often has the added benefit of covering those excluded parts as well and at no extra cost.
You can find it on the web site of some of the Internet based car hire insurance providers. These specialists can also supply policies specifically tailored for rentals in the UK, Europe, USA or other destinations worldwide.
They also offer longer-term annual cover that may be of special interest if you rent cars frequently. An annual policy would provide you with excess cover for all of your rentals in the course of a year (one at a time of course).
These specialist providers tend not to cover the more exotic makes of car such as sports or vintage models or very high value vehicles.
They can also offer LDW (Loss Damage Waiver) cover for USA rentals (and some other destinations worldwide) that again may be very much cheaper than the cover you could buy at the car rental desk.
You simply buy your policy from the specialists in advance of your rental and take the policy details with you, as your car hire company may need them to contact your insurer if you have an accident.
So, whether you’re looking for loss damage waiver cover, excess cover or both, why not have a look at what these specialist providers have on offer?
Tags: Loss Damage Waiver