HolidayAutos Damage excess insurance WARNING

Erv

When booking on their site they tell you that you must purchase the damage excess waiver at the same time as your booking as you won't be ablle to purchase it when you collect your car.

It costs £15 in our case, but beware IT IS NOT A DAMAGE EXCESS WAIVER product and is being mis-sold. It is a cash plan or reimbursement insurance that repays any excess you've had to pay following an accident.

It does not cover you for things such as windscreen damage, or car park accidents.

As we dicsovered, you are also obliged to pay the excess deposit to the hire commpany, in our case £750 - you pay it and providing no claim is made, they refund your card. Or as we did, you pay the premium for the hire companys damage excess waiver.

In our case we paid the exces waiver to the hire company. We're glad we did, the windscreen ended up with a crack. They would have taken the cost of a new windscreen from the £750 deposit, and we would not have been able to reclaim the cost from the holidayauto insurance as it wasn't covered.

Holidayautos are mis-selling this product, and do not provide 'key facts' which would show you the extensive list of what is not covered. They also fall foul of the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly policy/regulation.

The advice from the nice chap at budget hire at belfast city airport was - use holidayauto to book cos it's cheaper than going directly, but DO NOT purchase their so called 'damage waiver excess' product.

Hope this helps!

pompeyrich

Holiday Autos offer 2 types of excess waiver, standard and total. Total includes tyres, windows, interior damage and replacement keys, in addition to the damage excess. Not sure where you got the idea that "car park accidents" wouldn't be covered. Std CDW at Belfast is £2.99 a day, Total waiver £4.75. Budget quote £13 a day on their website. It is quite clear in HA's T&Cs that it is a claim later type of policy and that is the trade off for the cheaper cover.

Donnie

WorldwideInsure
Insurance4CarHire

Erv

In short the point I was making is that,
1) DEW - means you dont pay any excess
2) Reimbursement means you do pay the excess in the hope that you receive a cheque

The later is being sold by HA as the former - i.e. HA should not call their product a DEW

I'd rather pay £11 to budget and have no hassel than pay £5 to HA with all the hassel and possibility of not being reimbursed.

I supposed the message is that reimbursement products may be cheaper, but in some cases do not represent value for money