Renting a car these days is easy. With most of the larger companies and many of the smaller ones you can do it over the phone or on the Internet. It’s only when it comes to organising the insurance for car rental that some people can have a problem deciding what it all means and what they do and don’t need.
You will probably need two main categories of cover for car rentals. The first is third party cover which insures you against damage you may cause to someone else or his or her vehicle or property. The second type is collision damage waiver which covers damage to, or the loss or theft of, the rental vehicle.
With both of these types of insurance, if provided by the car rental company, you may find that the cover is not complete and that you would still be liable for some costs. This is because of the excesses and exclusions typically found on both types of insurance for car rental policies.
An excess on the policy is an amount which can be anything between 500 and 1500 pounds, which you would have to pay in the event of damage to the car. So with damage to the car costing say 1000 pounds and an excess of 1250 pounds, you would have to pay for all of the damage. If the damage cost 1500 pounds you would have to pay 1250 and the insurance cover would pick up the remaining 250 pounds. Even though third party by law in the UK has to provide unlimited liability there may still be an excess for that type of cover as well.
As another example, you may also find that damage to certain areas of the rented vehicle is excluded from cover. This could prove expensive following an accident.
It’s also worth remembering that there will be different rental conditions depending upon the country you are renting in and the rental company you are using. Not all countries have unlimited third party liability for example. In many the standard third-party liability insurance is severely limited in terms of maximum payout levels so you may want to make sure that you have additional top-up cover to ensure that you are not landed with astronomical costs should you cause damage or injury to a third party.
You can of course buy additional insurance to cover all of the potential costs of the excesses and other exclusions contained within the car rental company’s standard insurance. The car rental company may well offer such additional cover but this will be expensive and you may well find that you can get it cheaper if you shop around a bit. You almost certainly will have compared the prices of a number of companies for the rental car itself so why not do the same thing for the insurance for car rental?
There are a number of direct insurance providers in the market who specialise in this type of insurance and you may find that you can get a better level of cover for a significantly cheaper cost.
They can offer standard daily rentals or annual policies which can be used for a number of rentals over the 12-month period. Many of their policies will also cover those areas of the car typically excluded from standard collision damage waiver policies.
If the need arises the car rental company will charge any costs to your credit card. All you then need to do is to claim on your direct policy for reimbursement.
The specialist insurance providers may exclude specialist vehicle types such as sports, vintage, or very high value cars but for the majority of renters they should be able to provide significant savings on insurance for car rental.
Tags: Insurance For Car Rental