Car hire excess insurance?

A snowHead

I normally take out car hire excess insurance, and was just about to take out another policy, when I noticed this wording.

A snowHead

@NickyJ, I use Cover 4 Rentals, which also includes accident damage repair costs. €470 for an alloy wheeel damaged for example. I suspect that's why the policies have that upper limit in case the accident damage exceeds 65K.

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I have cover from Questor - max vehicle value £100K, max excess refund is £10K.

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@NickyJ, this may be a stupid statement/question, but seeing that the supplier gave you an (presumably unrequested) upgrade, would that be their issue and not yours regarding your policy.
also, can you not refuse the upgrade in case it does invalidate your policy?

must admit, i have not had excess insurance for a few years now, as not needed a hire car, but i did not know there were vehicle replacement limits on any policies, handy to know for future use

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80k ish euros is £65k ish. Depends which way the ish is

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@terrygasson, most hire company Ts & Cs that I'm aware of, state that you will be supplied with a vehicle of the category that you rented, or better. If you want complete insurance, the rental company will provide that (at a price). That doesn't seem like an unreasonable contract term, so I'm not sure on what grounds you could refuse the upgrade.

My previous excess cover policy on my Barclaycard hadn't been updated for over a decade, so had a £35k limit. I don't think the Amex policy has any cap, and is also full CDW, not just excess cover.

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@snowdave, fair enough, was just wondering about the level of excess insurance cover.
to be honest i don't think, previously, i would have ever been affected by this policy, as i always tended to go for the cheapest possible rental vehicle available for the required occupants, i doubt if any car i have ever hired as gone anywhere near £60k value.

#cheapskate Toofy Grin

After all it is free

Insurance 4 car hire

https://www.insurance4carhire.com/products/europe-car-hire-excess-insurance

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You know it makes sense.

@NickyJ, for Munich can I recommend anyone EXCEPT the Europcar group.

Now nothing against/wrong with Europcar, just used them from Munich airport Easter '24 and New Year '25 and the cheapest borh time...which meant long queues both times (best part of an hour) - while every other desk was ones or twos.

Not sure what deal was at Easter but we ended up upgraded to a MB van as they didn't have our booking 7-seater and an estate was too small.

NY seems heavy traffic back from Christmas week meant a lot if late returns as much of the queue was waiting for vehicles to become available, so not their fault as such - but would still have been in the road a lot sooner if we'd paid a little more for a car from a different hire company group.

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@Mjit, same experience for me - https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=160185 - where all they had was a row of 7-9 seater buses.

A snowHead

@Mjit, since we were defrauded by Europcar in Italy we went a long time before used any hire companies. They are a NEVER again.

We have booked Hertz

A snowHead

Be clear about the difference between 3rd.-Party CDW cover and excess cover, as some policies don’t make the distinction clear in their Ts&Cs.

If you think you can decline CDW because you have a car rental policy, you need to be absolutely certain of the detail. My policy comes in two forms: excess and excess+CDW, with the premium for the latter not being that great, relatively speaking. Add to that some websites (e.g. Hertz) make CDW an opt-in, not an opt-out, so a mistake (assuming it’s included by default when it isn’t) can be easy to make.

CDW covers you for the entirety of repair or if a write-off, complete replacement. Excess just covers you for the excess on various segments of cover. If you decline or don’t opt-in to CDW, and aren’t covered for CDW, then if the car is written off, you have to buy a replacement.

If you’re booking Hertz, then join their Gold Club. It’s free and gives you a second driver for free, but you must register the 2nd driver at the point of pickup - you can’t do it later, once you’ve driven away. You also get a dedicated fast lane and they say preferential upgrade if possible.

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@LaForet, your advice seems pretty confusing to UK citizens ( who generally don't carry umbrella car ins on their credit card or domestic policy) but who book through consolidators like Holiday Autos etc. There the cost is inclusive of insurance but still requires an excess to be held against a cc. The cost with the provider to upgrade to "super" insurance without the excess is often more than the original rental +insurance.

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Sixt (in Germany not sure about other countries) also now have as the basic rental, a hire with no CDW, you have to opt in. The basic CDW is with an excess of somewhere between €500 - €2000 depending on the value of the vehicle (you can reduce the excess to zero too but this is expensive). If you dont take this by accident or design and the vehicle is stolen or written off you are responsible for the entire value of the vehicle. This would not be covered by excess insurance. I believe this is standard in the US and most folk hiring cars there have CDW insurance but not common elsewhere

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@DaveoftheMarmottes That’s why I mention it, because it’s very easy to find yourself in the position I did and @Munich_Irish describes, where without realising it, you’re liable for the entire replacement cost of the rental vehicle, because while you have the 3rd. Party rental excess cover, your policy doesn’t include CDW. I’m talking about a direct rental from a major company at GVA. The rental car website really didn’t make the CDW opt-in obvious, and so I ended up with a rental without it. When I went back to the 3rd. Party policy, in the fine print it was clear that it wasn't the excess+CDW policy but the excess-only version. Turned out the +CDW was only another £80 on the annual policy price, so very cost-effective even for just a single rental, where the rental company’s CDW option added over £400 to the hire.

In Europe, I suspect that car rental companies are increasingly offering CDW as an opt-in (rather than default), because most business customers don’t want it, as they are covered by corporate insurance. Perhaps once one company startd doing this, then the rest had to follow because their default price would otherwise look uncompetitive. Just a theory.

After all it is free

@LaForet, which company? I’m keen to find non-cdw-inclusive rentals since I already have the cover.

The one time I got a non cdw rental from hertz, the rep took enormous pains to point out the implication of what I was doing and was very reluctant to complete the rental - IME the rental companies have no desire to rent on this basis because the chance that the renter can actually cover the bill is very low and recovery will be difficult.

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@snowdave, Maybe because Hertz & Sixt are primarily aiming for the corporate market they offer the non CDW option. Also it makes the headline rental price look cheaper. I would assume renting through a consolidator would mean the CDW is included.

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@abc, my understanding is that most US based renters have cover for hire cars automatically included on their normal vehicle insurance.

If you put your address/residency as Uk when renting in the US, CDW is IME always automatically included. So it’s not that “all” US car hire is without CDW, it’s that for you, it’s all without CDW, whereas for me, it’s all with CDW.

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@munich_irish, I can’t get a non CDW price from hertz - how are you cajoling the website into offering it? (The one time I did it previously was via a consolidator that offered its own CDW instead, and hertz then dropped the consolidator; I wonder if the lost CDW revenue contributed?)

This discussion has usefully encouraged me to revisit me hertz reservation for a few weeks time, and discover that prices are 20% lower, so I’ve rebooked.

@snowdave, I have never looked at Hertz, only repeating what @LaForet, said above. Maybe they dont offer it. Sixt in Germany certainly do (or did the last time I hired a car from them, last summer), dont know about other countries. I suspect it is an option for corporate accounts where the account holder agrees to take on the cost of insurance including 3rd party.

You know it makes sense.

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@Snowdave It was direct via hertz.ch as a Gold Club member. So perhaps in these circumstances the website presents the rental with CDW as an opt-in, assuming that Club members are more likely to have their own, or corporate CDW cover. As I said, opting-in for CDW would have hiked-up the one week rental by CHF 400.

I always start with hertz.ch and my Gold Club login for GVA rentals, just to get a baseline. Plus it comes with a 2nd driver for free. And often they do 15%-20% discount offers. I then look elsewhere if the pricing seems too steep. At least 60% of the time the Hertz is competitive.

A snowHead

I'm pretty sure websites are pretty clever based on your geolocation and/or selected currency. At least the consolidators I tend to look at are (rarely find a better price going direct). I always (through a consolidator) get offered full CDW included for US rentals (maybe SIXT came up as a highlighted exception but then they are pretty much a minor in the US rental market) and cross checking the price is usually at least competitive with Hotwire/Priceline etc (to which I'd have to add CDW).

Desk agent behaviour is a thing in itself - recently I seem to have lucked out with some non pushy ones once you listen to their spiel and politely say no they haven't pushed it. I'm still dubious of e.g. the Italian model which is to have cars available for buttons but clearly never fix cosmetic damage and hope to catch multiple customers out on it.

A snowHead

@LaForet, Thanks. My experience has been that the websites are pretty clever about where you're coming from and which site you are on. e.g. if I try and get a GVA quote on hertz.com when I'm in the US, I get a price ex CDW vs if I use a VPN and my UK address I get inc CDW, so it may be influenced by your use of hertz.ch.

I'll try Hertz.ch next time and see if I can force it to "no CDW" and save much.

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

@Dave of the Marmottes, GVA on Sunday evening, the rep had a special ultra-bright LED strip lamp, and went over the car with a fine toothcomb. Bit of a contrast to the dark pickup area with cars parked so closely that you can barely squeeze through with a phone.

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Worthwhile mentioning some things a helpful Hertz return rep told us: first that alloy wheel damage is as, if not more important and expensive to repair than bodywork damage, so check the wheels as/more thoroughly. Second, that on busy days, although it's frowned upon by management, under pressure from impatient pick-ups the drivers may not check the bodywork and leave it to the next renter to be accused of damage. When it's quieter, they are not surprisingly more likely to check properly. So if it's busy, be even more vigilant about checking the condition.

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On that, also check the roof for damage on pickup.

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We picked up a car from Lyon yesterday - went over it with a fine tooth comb (we thought) and took loads of exterior pictures and video and a video of the interior

Stopped at a supermarket and on getting back to the car husband spotted a cigarette burn on the passenger seat - how had I not noticed it? checked the video - it had been covered up with a piece of paper listing emergency numbers! When I moved it to sit down I wasn’t in checking mode

I suspect they will try to charge us - we have excess cover and proof they covered it up - and a picture of it being there on day one (once we discovered it) but I really don’t need the hassle Sad

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IMPORTANT

I talked to insurance4carhire today (2.4.25) and they explicitly confirmed that they DO NOT cover you for CDW if you rent a car in Europe and CDW is available form the rental company. You may have their Global 'Excess+CDW' policy but this does not cover you for CDW in Europe, even if the CDW is an optional extra i.e. you aren't actively 'declining' it, but rather not opting to take it.

I've been getting quotes for some upcoming rentals at Geneva and Montpellier, and in both cases, CDW was an optional extra (at about £34-£38/day) from the rental companies. Neither of these would be covered by my insurance4carhire policy. So if I didn't take the car rental CDW out and wrote the car off, I'd be liable for the entire cost of replacing it.

After all it is free

@LaForet, thanks for that warning. I think some car hire companies seem to be changing their policy - I have it in mind that there was always a "minimum" level of CDW insurance which was inescapable. But perhaps not..... certainly v important to check.

I just checked again and as far as I can see all the cars from gva on rental cars.com would include cdw with an excess of 2000+ and it is this excess that is covered by excess insurance?

Just FYI when we returned our car to Lyon the lady from Thrifty (Hertz) looked at the cigarette burn. shrugged and said not to worry as they don’t bother about the inside and signed the car off for us. So far so good, no further contact.

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As I said, I started on this thread because on a recent rental from GVA and a prospective one from Montpellier, with Hertz, CDW was very clearly not included in the base price, but was an option on the website. We're talking about an extra £36-£38/day, so understandably if you thought your 3rd-party 'excess' cover was enough, you wouldn't go for CDW.

To underline the gravity of not having it, CDW is what covers you for the cost of replacing a car that's been written off or seriously damaged. The usual excesses are for other elements of cover.

This is what's causing all the confusion. Policies like that from insurance4carhire talk about CDW but aren't very clear that this is only for named countries where no CDW at all is included in the rental contract or as an option. And that's not Europe.

Explicitly for insurance4carhire, the CDW cover - which is only part of the 'Global' policy - is only for named countries (Canada, USA, S. America etc.) where no CDW is included in any rental contract offered to you. If CDW is available from the rental company on a European rental, then the insurance4carhire Global policy is not an alternative. If you want that cover, you have to take it from the rental company.

Help!!

Car hire excess insurance?

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