Car Rental Excess Insurance

[SFSC]

Is obtaining car rental excess insurance from an insurer such as https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/#0 rather than that offered by the car rental company worthwhile?

Does anyone have any claims experiences from a similar arrangement?

 

[Lemon_Party]

Haven't used one of these but some credit cards now include this cover, so I have just relied on that in the last few years. Never had to claim, so no idea if the coverage will turn out to be good...

 

[JohnK]

I have been purchasing annual travel insurance that includes car rental excess cover for many years. I've never needed to claim. I hope I am covered and not have any hassles if I ever need to claim.

 

[BettyB]

The moment you use a third party for this you risk them refusing to pay out.

Having said that, I do have excess rental coverage included in my annual travel insurance policy.

 

[Mattg]

I recently took up the excess insurance from the third party booking site. It was slightly cheaper than the insurance offered by the rental company itself, but there was a catch - if I needed to claim, I would have to pay the full amount upfront and then put in a claim to the third party website to get that money back. Next time I will just buy insurance directly from the rental agency.

 

[dajop]

I recently took up the excess insurance from the third party booking site. It was slightly cheaper than the insurance offered by the rental company itself, but there was a catch - if I needed to claim, I would have to pay the full amount upfront and then put in a claim to the third party website to get that money back. Next time I will just buy insurance directly from the rental agency.

I have been doing this for some time. Yes that is a risk. But I've been paying $15 for 3 days to reduce to excess to zero, vs rental agencies that can charge $25/day for the same.

I've used worldwideinsure.com for some time, although I note it will cease offering policies to residents outside EU from 1 June. I haven't had to claim but reviews are positive. I did cancel the insurance once, after the cancellation deadline, due to cancelling rental and taking out different rental in my name rather than partners (manual car, which partner can't/won't drive), and taking out insurance in my name instead. They refunded the cancelled insurance to our CC within a couple of days.

I am always a bit worried about some of the clauses in the credit card policies, particularly those in relation to "taking out insurances offered by the car hire company". Are these still there? Also these days excesses can be often in the order of $3000-$5000 and some credit card policies may only be $2000.

Bottom line, you really need to know what you are doing. I have no idea how the average uninformed person deals with this, I guess they just pay what they have to pay to reduce the excess (I know my brother in law was intimidated into taking agency excess reduction when renting from Apex recently, as he was told that RACV cover he had wouldn't cover for XYZ, although I doubt the veracity in that advice).

 

[JohnK]

Bottom line, you really need to know what you are doing. I have no idea how the average uninformed person deals with this, I guess they just pay what they have to pay to reduce the excess (I know my brother in law was intimidated into taking agency excess reduction when renting from Apex recently, as he was told that RACV cover he had wouldn't cover for XYZ, although I doubt the veracity in that advice).

A person was in front of me at NTL on Friday. They chose to pay the $33.50/day that was quoted. I'm not certain but it could have been a 5-6 day rental as the final price quoted was ~$560. The amount paid to reduce the excess is almost as much as my annual travel insurance policy.

He was an elderly gentleman with his wife. Feel sorry for them but education on these matters is not easy.

The one that gets up my nose is the breakdown insurance. When did they manage to unbundle that from the car hire rate? I remember having a flat tyre in PER around 5-6 years ago and called them and they came out and fixed it without charge.

 

[Fifa]

I have been using Tripcover for quite some time. It is underwritten by Allianz and covers the car rental excess for trips closer than 250km from home that my annual policy does not cover:
https://tripcover.com.au

 

[Lemon_Party]

The one that gets up my nose is the breakdown insurance. When did they manage to unbundle that from the car hire rate?

:shock:

I haven't seen that yet! Rent our car, but if it breaks down don't worry, we'll be charging you to deal with it. Really gives them an incentive to stay on top of servicing and maintenance...

Which rental companies are pushing this?

 

[NZflygirl]

I tried clarifying the excess with my credit card and got the run around from westpac to the underwriters. No one gave me a straight answer:evil:

 

[JohnK]

:shock:

I haven't seen that yet! Rent our car, but if it breaks down don't worry, we'll be charging you to deal with it. Really gives them an incentive to stay on top of servicing and maintenance...

Which rental companies are pushing this?

Hertz is one but I am not sure about flat tyre. Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

[h=1]Premium Emergency Roadside Assistance[/h] Back to Services in Hertz Rental Car - Premium Emergency Roadside Assistance Hertz knows things can go wrong on the road, so we offer our Basic Emergency Roadside Assistance with each rental - which covers the mechanical defects of the vehicle only. [h=3]Need Emergency Roadside Assistance? Call 1-800-654-5060 or 405-749-3686[/h] Our Hertz Premium Emergency Roadside Assistance is an optional service which, if accepted, reduces your financial liability for services required to remedy non-mechanical problems of the vehicle and/or problems resulting from an accident or collision. To add Premium Emergency Roadside Assistance to your rental, ask your Hertz counter representative to add the service to your reservat

 

[deejo77]

Don't get a rental in Iceland the extras kill, gravel, tire, sandstorm ect

 

[dcvr]

I've heard there's a gotcha here regarding the USA?

If you decline all the "optional" insurance offered by the hire car company then you end up with no protection other than the $2-5K or whatever coverage you have on your insurance policy. So if you're in an accident and cause $20K worth of damage, you could be out the difference.

The reason seems to be that US residents own personal car insurance often covers them when they hire a rental car for things like liability, so they can happily decline the options and still be covered. As a tourist you'd be leaving yourself with a large gap!

Can anyone confirm this? Worrying, as I've routinely rejected all the optional insurance offerings on the basis that I thought I would just have a small excess and that would be covered by my travel insurance, as is the case in Europe and most other places.

 

[Cynicor]

Actually, you won't be covered at all, for anything. Except if you use the Amex platinum charge insurance which seems to have great car hire clauses.

Basically in the USA drivers are insured, not cars. You need to take out all the main insurances (LDW and CDW) to be insured. The simplest way is to rent via a website which routinely includes it all for not much less- I use Expedia.co.uk as one such site, if it's cheap.

 

[NZflygirl]

Actually, you won't be covered at all, for anything. Except if you use the Amex platinum charge insurance which seems to have great car hire clauses.

Basically in the USA drivers are insured, not cars. You need to take out all the main insurances (LDW and CDW) to be insured. The simplest way is to rent via a website which routinely includes it all for not much less- I use Expedia.co.uk as one such site, if it's cheap.

I was looking at the charge card insurance the other day and it seems to be fairly straight forward. No lingo leaving you wondering if you are covered or not. Doesn't mention anything about having to buy excess etc.

 

[Cynicor]

Yeah, for such an oddly worded policy otherwise, it's pretty amazing!

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Is obtaining car rental excess insurance from an insurer such as https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/#0 rather than that offered by the car rental company worthwhile?

Does anyone have any claims experiences from a similar arrangement?

I am looking at this now for 2018 for a UK+Ireland trip where I will have at least 3 car hires of a about a week each time.

If you only have one hire then no biggie. But as you can buy an a 12 month policy with www.icarhireinsurance.com which is only about the cost of one hire you end up a long way in front with multiple hires.

Plus the extra cover direct from the companies seems to be a lot higher than mentioned in this thread.

In addition it covers damage to bodywork, windscreens, tyres, roof and undercarriage that the car hire companies exclude.

Excess Europe Annual

Your annual premium is £37.99

• Europe Territory Only
• £6,000 Excess Cover (£6,000 single incident limit)
• Covers damage to bodywork, windscreens, tyres, roof and undercarriage
• Covers up to 9 named drivers on the rental agreement (How it works)
• Covers Local in-Country Rentals
• No distance restrictions from main residence
• Price includes Insurance Premium Tax (IPT)
• Multi-trip policy - take as many as you want!
• 65 Day Continuous Cover on any one rental agreement
• Towing and Breakdown cover included as standard!

 

[SFSC]

I am looking at this now for 2018 for a UK+Ireland trip where I will have at least 3 car hires of a about a week each time.

If you only have one hire then no biggie. But as you can buy an a 12 month policy with www.icarhireinsurance.com which is only about the cost of one hire you end up a long way in front with multiple hires.

Plus the extra cover direct from the companies seems to be a lot higher than mentioned in this thread.

In addition it covers damage to bodywork, windscreens, tyres, roof and undercarriage that the car hire companies exclude.

Excess Europe Annual

Your annual premium is £37.99

• Europe Territory Only
• £6,000 Excess Cover (£6,000 single incident limit)
• Covers damage to bodywork, windscreens, tyres, roof and undercarriage
• Covers up to 9 named drivers on the rental agreement (How it works)
• Covers Local in-Country Rentals
• No distance restrictions from main residence
• Price includes Insurance Premium Tax (IPT)
• Multi-trip policy - take as many as you want!
• 65 Day Continuous Cover on any one rental agreement
• Towing and Breakdown cover included as standard!

Well I have just concluded the two week rental in the UK which had prompted me to make the original post. I took out the annual insurance with iCarhireinsurance but, thankfully, I am unable to provide any information to the thread on claims experience because despite the usual near misses one seems to experience with white delivery vans on the back country roads no claimable incident occurred on this rental.

Overall, I think some peace of mind is worth the £37.99 even if I still don't really know how an actual claim would work out,

 

[amaroo]

Have a few international bookings coming up this year.... I'm using the horses for courses approach here.

One in NZ where I'll rely on TI or CC coverage (whatever is the higher cover)

And a couple in Mexico where I'll be taking out insurance for absolutely everything directly with the hire company.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

This won't help the OP, but I pretty much have the JQ Platinum MasterCard almost entirely for domestic (AU) car excess cover. It seems to be one of the better card covers on a relatively cheap card which earns QF points and gives the small benefit of JQ bookings fee free.