Annual Car Rental Extra Insurance

A snowHead

This is regarding insurance policies for car rentals, for the additional cover like collision damage and theft etc. Car rental companies notoriously charge an arm and a leg for this. People variously mention companies that offer this independently at much less overall cost. But it takes some searching to find the references. So I thought I'd have a thread where people can mention who they have policies with and any claims experience and recommendations etc.

EDIT:

insurance4carhire (i4ch) offers extra cover to pay out for excess and extra costs, essentially there are to sorts of policy: (a) a limited one that pays out for the excess on secondary stuff like damage outside of CDW and keys, mis-fueling, baggage and drop-off charges. (b) more comprehensive one that covers CDW and Supplementary Liability if there's no CDW in the rental, or if you're offered rental CDW and decline it They also have a (i) Europe or (ii) Worldwide option. Finally, you can extend the cover to include another person as well.

Rental company CDW and Liability cover can be very expensive, sometimes doubling the cost of the base rental. So the i4ch is worth considering, especially if you do multiple trips in a year. It's also worth considering for the USA where the CDW offered by companies varies significantly, and you may not be covered as well as you imagine.

A snowHead

Insurance4carhire Used them several times - FAR cheaper than taking the hire company's excess. One claim (for callout for a flat tyre and related complications) settled without a problem though, as expected, I paid upfront.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Most of the major comparison sites will let you shop around for vehicle hire excess insurance. I’ve used reducemyexcess in the past, never needed to claim, though.

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I have used Questor for a few years now about £40 for European cover. Their call centre is pretty good and I have claimed once with little hassle (as long as you have/can get all the right paperwork needed).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Vehicle excess cover is very different from full CDW etc needed for US. My experience is that it's hard as a UK resident to find CDW exclusive rentals as the default is to include it ( often quite reasonably if you're going through a consolidator).

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I've not rented a car in the US since I rented one from Hertz for $99 a month, unlimited mileage and did a huge and wonderful winter road trip, spending Christmas in Denver and new year shooting (or in my case failing to shoot) squirrels in Selma Alabama.

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We take out an annual excess policy also with Insurance4carhire.

Think it was £60 for worldwide cover incl USA and Canada for the year.

Luckily we’ve not had to claim from them but my uncle did and like @pam w, it was all straight forward.

After all it is free

I've also recently had a large claim very well handled by insurance4carhire

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Always use insurance4carhire, one claim settled quickly and fuss free. Always buy through topcashback as it reduces the cost significantly.

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Another vote for insurance4carhire which worked out well for me when I claimed a few years back.

Similarly American Express platinum (full cdw, not just excess cover) was good with a claim, and paid out swiftly and in full on a claim last year.

I don’t understand why the car rental companies don’t do their own annual policies as a way of driving repeat business/locking customers in. They could charge a decent premium as it would be hassle-free in terms of not needing paperwork.

Another vote for Insurance4carhire, think it was £40 for European and UK cover for the year.

Had a claim from Goldcar and they paid within a week

You know it makes sense.

Insurance4carhire were great when I had issues in Spain a few years ago. Simple system to make a claim and a quick payout.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@mountainaddict, @j b, my Hertz car hire was Christmas/New Year 1970/71. The squirrels, shot in Alabama not by me, were subsequently turned into breakfast by the mother of Vernon, a friend from the Harvard Law School. It was served with "grits 'n gravy" as an example of traditional southern fare. As we were in a car with a Yankee licence plate I was told that if we were stopped by the police I was the one who had to talk. This was just 5 years after the famous Selma race riots. The driver of a car with Boston plates stopped by police in Alabama was better advised to be Welsh than Yankee.

The friend I travelled with, also a Harvard Law Student, was very amused when I suggested, after some thousands of miles, that perhaps we should check the car's tyre pressures and oil level. I was assured there was no need for such old-fashioned concerns with American cars.

Yes - thread diversion, sorry!

I have no idea what insurance the car had..... Embarassed

A snowHead

There are issues with small print.

Things like whether recovery is within the policy.

Think I use reduce my excess as they were the ones I chose a few years ago and often give you a good discount on renewal

But incredibly reasonably priced not that i have ever had the misfortune to claim (had a Portuguese car hire company bothered to clean the car properly they would not have left the papers from a previous hirer showing the damage they tried to stuff us for.....)

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@countryman, why would recovery be in a policy for damage excess,

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Aviva premier? (or plus?) car insurance includes free hire car excess insurance which is handy! It might sway your choice when you come to reinsure.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Sounds great @pam w! Mrs MA is amazed when I remember the price of ski hols, lift passes etc from 30 years ago - but I'm not sure I'll know them in another 20-odd years! Laughing

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So thanks for all the replies, and it looks like Insurance4carhire gets the most votes.

One thing I must admit that I hadn't realised is that their cover is only for excess, not if you have collision damage waiver. So you do still have to take out CDW.

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@LaForet, yes you need the CDW, this is to cover the excess only. Its always included in any car hire I've used. I haven't hired in North America though

After all it is free

Another vote for insurance4carhire. About £40 a year, one claim for a scratched alloy (about £600), paid within 24hrs. Next year’s premium actually went down!

@andy from embsay, and biy through quidco for cashback

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@Bones, some of us have more claims paid out than we will ever pay in premiums

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@holidayloverxx, spot on. My claim was about 15 years premiums!

@andy from embsay, mine was 30 years!. (and that was just one)

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

I used eversure and directexcess. Google discount codes because there is always something available. I've had couple claims from directexcess and 1 from eversure. In both cases something was wrong in my paperwork (or lack of it) and both companies did best to resolve, e.g. by contacting car rental directly.
HOWEVER, please read T&Cs!
If you go to Switzerland or Germany and use one of the big brands it's very likely you will end up with a car faster or more expensive than what T&Cs allow for and it could cause an issue (luckily directexcess didn't check it for one of my claims or ignored it).

Not sure about the latest amex T&Cs but couple years ago they didn't have exclusions related to acceleration or car value.
Oh, and one more thing. In some countries SIXT offers possibility of renting a car without additional cover, i.e. you end up having TP only. I once was closed to accidently booking it.

A snowHead

I have a Revolut Metal plan which includes Car Hire Excess insurance up to £2000. I had to make a Sixt claim a few months ago, they do ask for lots of documents (passport/drivers licence/invoice/photos/damage report), but this seems fairly standard for a claim - fairly quick payout (vaguely recall 1 week).

Also the Metal plan includes the relevant following benefits (there's more on the website):
1) travel insurance (including winter sports cover) for you and immediate family, though I've not claimed (touch wood) so I'm not sure whether it will suit the hardcore skiers on this forum jumping out of helicopters! Laughing

2) better FX rates (zero fees or weekdays): it also allows you to hold CHF and EUR in a virtual wallet
3) £800 ATM withdrawal/month, including abroad (per above post, Revolut don't tend to charge a fee under this amount, but the ATM provider might)
4) SmartDelay: free lounge passes for you + travelling companions (even friends I believe) if Revolut detects your flight (which you must pre-register) is delayed by 2 hours (not sure what they use but the pass has been automatically issued before the airline told me about the delay in a couple of cases!). Could be quite handy if travelling in/out of UK when there's a speckle of snow
5) cashback on hotel/apartment bookings (I guess they get affiliate fees from expedia, which it books through)

Costs £140 for the year (just raised from £120, but they added more perks like FT subscription, tinder rolling eyes

, blah), or you can buy a monthly plan ~£15/month. For the metal plan you do get a metal card which seems "fashionable", but given I rarely use an actual card for spending and I'm not cool enough, I just use a regular one.

I would re-iterate to check T&Cs / details of their insurance policies to determine whether it covers your needs, as their limits may be lower than other policies and not cover specific things (not sure how insurers categorise ski gear damage for example)

[Caveat that I'm not a Revolut salesperson nor employee, just a happy early user sharing knowledge...and in full disclosure, I do own a teeny teeny bit of equity, but certainly not enough for a decent ski pass!]

If you do sign up, then please do use the referral link below and I'll donate any referral fees I get towards the forum...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I’m resurrecting this thread because of a disturbing detail in the small print of my Insurance4CarHire terms and conditions.

This is regarding the point of my original post which was whether you could get CDW insurance independently. This arose because CDW is offered as an optional extra by the likes of Hertz at Geneva.

Now, my Insure4Carhire Global+CDW policy covers me for CDW, but only where this is not included or offered as a rental option. It does not cover me if I decline it when offered even if CDW is presented as an optional extra. Which is what happened to me at my last GVA rental - looking at the summary on return I realised I’d done exactly that and on the agreement it clearly said DECLINED.

What this means is that I’d be liable for the entire cost of repair or replacement of the rental car after an incident. And that Insurance4CarHire would not have covered me because I’d declined an offered CDW cover.

So just in case anyone else is in the same situation, even with Worldwide+CDW cover, you need to be very clear on pick-up around the status of your CDW cover if through misunderstanding or mis-selection on booking you actively decline an offered CDW option.

What I suspect happened is that CDW was offered on the Hertz booking page in the form of a blank box I actively had to tick in order to take up. And that I simply overlooked doing so. But in the eyes of both Hertz and I4CH this is interpreted as an active rejection of an offer of CDW cover by Hertz, and thus wouldn’t come under the Worldwide+CDW scope of the I4CH policy.

No wonder the Hertz rate was so competitive!

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@LaForet, I don't follow. Why would insurance 4 car hire offer a +CDW if it only pays out if the rental has CDW?

I thought insurance 4 car hire only did excess insurance, therefore expects the rental to have CDW. (But its some years since I've bought it)

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

No, they do a ‘Global+CDW’ cover that’s about 2x the regular European cover. This is for situations where a rental company doesn’t provide CDW. Basically, with it you can be sure that you’re covered for damage and replacement in any situation, anywhere.

Some rental companies in some locations don’t provide CDW as part of the rental.

But the situation I was describing is the grey area where the rental company does offer it - but only as a sign-up option. If you miss the sign-up invitation (as I did), then the Insurance4CarHire Ts&Cs are that their CDW doesn’t apply because you’ve declined to take it up. Even if it’s not that obvious you’re being offered it. I didn’t decline it - I just didn’t see it was not included. Bit it would amount to the same thing, apparently.

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@LaForet, ah, I see. Makes sense

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@LaForet, where does it say that you're not covered "if you decline"? All I can see is that for you to be covered by I4CH, you need to NOT be covered by the rental company.

"Where this cover is not provided by the Car Rental Company this Policy will provide cover for up to US $100,000 for Damage to the Rental Vehicle". Note "provided" not "offered".

In addition, earlier in the policy doc, it very clearly states that you should always accept CDW from the rental company _unless_ you have taken out I4CH's CDW/SLI cover. "You must ensure that Your Rental Agreement includes collision damage waiver and theft protection cover, unless You have purchased Our Worldwide Plus CDW/SLI cover."

After all it is free

Maybe worth contacting Insurance4CarHire to get clarity.

Yes, good advice, and I’ll do that. Some of the Ts&Cs are USA-specific whilst some are generic, so while it may be clear when hiring in the USA, the situation I described for Geneva rentals is less clear i.e. where CDW is offered but declined, either through deliberate choice or a simple mistake. In the @Snowdave extract it's saying I'm covered if the rental company don't offer CDW, but in this case they are, just that I declined it.

Anyway, as always with insurance, it’s better ask in advance and get clarity than to make a claim and get mired in argument after the event.

I’ve done some IT work for an insurer and there’s also the issue that many policies nowadays are composed dynamically from multiple boilerplate paragraphs. Based in the Q&A you engage in with the website. So one person’s policy conditions may be subtly different to another’s and your cover may not be the same as someone in apparently similar circumstances. So again, worth asking in advance of any possible claim.

The driver is that the extra premium for a year's Global+CDW+Other policy is only about £85 on top of the standard one. Which is a lot less than £200+ for just a week's CDW with Hertz at GVA. But that's irrelevant if the Insurance4CarHire policy is voided because Hertz are offering me CDW but I'm declining it.

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@LaForet, thanks for posting about it though, I know a lot of us use this. And let us know if you do get clarity.

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Annual Car Rental Extra Insurance

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