Car hire excess insurance?

nickers

Now I'm really confused! On the insurance4carhire.com website it offers a USA/Canada only policy covering CDW and SLI for £109 annually. Does that mean a normal worldwide policy wouldn't be enough for the US?

dzug1

nickers wrote: »

Now I'm really confused! On the insurance4carhire.com website it offers a USA/Canada only policy covering CDW and SLI for £109 annually. Does that mean a normal worldwide policy wouldn't be enough for the US?

Only a guess - that's a policy covering both CDW and SLI as it says. Ie full insurance. The cheaper one will cover SLI - ie the excess on the CDW - only

You need to read very carefully as to what policy covers what where

moneysavingmatthew

You need to be really really careful with Fly Drive package cars and insurance.

Fly Drive Packages
If you book a fly drive package it will very often NOT include CDW/SLI as standard. CDW essentially covers damage to the car, SLI covers any liability (i.e. if you seriously injure someone they will sue you - SLI covers that). Usually there is an option to purchase this as part of the package but it can get expensive so the free car is no longer as free as you thought.

Do it yourself Car Hire
Booking a hire car through a rental company (Hertz, Avis etc) or broker (carhire3000, holidayautos etc) will, unlike fly drive packages, almost always include CDW/SLI.

With both of the above you you may still be liable to a greater or lesser extend to any damage to your hire car via the CDW excess and this varies a lot. For example, renting in the UK it is typically £600 or more excess.

This is where the specialist excess insurance comes into play. These policies are good at covering the excess that CDW may leave you with. Be careful though as they are NOT a substitute for CDW as they usually have a very low limit. Enough to cover your excess but certainly not enough to cover the value fo the car if you write it off.

cubegame

Why not save the extra money on excess insurance by not crashing the car? Usually works for me.

dacunning

I wish we had the excess insurance for when someone attempted to break into our car in Southern Italy this past fall. They dented around the lock and that was enough for Avis to charge us 700 Euros and we don't even know if they actually fixed the car or just pocketed the money (as there were plenty of cars in the lot with little dents like this one). We will look into buying an annual policy for excess as it sure it cheaper than 700 Euros. It does !!!! me off a bit to think that they took the money and we have no way of knowing whether they fixed the car or just left it...the damage was such that it was purely cosmetic...if you looked really hard.

headpin

cubegame wrote: »

Why not save the extra money on excess insurance by not crashing the car? Usually works for me.

That is not usually good enough.

If you check, most car rentals, including those with zero excess, do not mean no claim (or excess) cannot be recovered bu the rental company. Most zero excess rentals do not include cover for items such as tyres (even punctures you will need to pay for), wheel rims, locks, loss of keys, damage/breakage of glass. You will often be charged for these even with full CDW/LDW cover with no excess.

The excess insurnaces cover these risks (as well as any excess that you may have tp pay if it's not a zero excess). There is often a limit of around £2000 to £3000 per policy/claim. But, if you get a damaged tyre you will find that you will be charged top price (possibly £300+) for a replacement. It will come straight off the credit card and you'll have little chance of a chargeback or recovery as it's normally legit under the rental agreement.

Like all things, you pays your money and takes your choice.

davetrousers

My parents used Questor for a holiday in Australia.

I have also got an annual policy with Questor. Cost was about £117. Has 1 million US dollars SLI cover

Can't really rate them as I haven't had to make a claim (yet)!

nickers

I have found out that our US car hire policy with Alamo includes CDW, SLI and has no excess. So I'm presuming the only thing we may need is to cover ourselves for damage to tyres, windows etc that are not generally covered. Any ideas where I could get a simple policy to cover this?

stevie11

nickers wrote: »

I have found out that our US car hire policy with Alamo includes CDW, SLI and has no excess. So I'm presuming the only thing we may need is to cover ourselves for damage to tyres, windows etc that are not generally covered. Any ideas where I could get a simple policy to cover this?

Try insurance4carhire.com . I paid £65 last summer for an annual policy for travel to North America

dolphinstwins

Thanks guys - already have a scoozy at some of this for my Aus trip (separate post)

Please forgive my ignorance but what does:

CDW/SLI.

mean?