Florida Car Hire - Very confused!!

scotbean

Hi hope someone can help!

We haven't been to Florida before and are going in 5 weeks (25th Sept.)

The holiday we booked with Thomas Cook has a car 'included' but we were told it had no insurance and were quoted £386 for the insurance. I have now pressed them for more deatils and got this email response from Thomas Cook

"The insurance included with the free car hire is a basic 3rd Party liability cover. This is recommended to be upgraded. Dollar do not allow 3rd party company insurances to be used for their cars. "

However I feel this cannot be right - surely we can arrange insurance here if we want and as long as we are covered they can't refuse it? Also I'm not sure what they mean by 'basic 3rd party cover' - I feel they are being deliberatley evasive and I asked some pretty specific questions which have not been answered!

I'm going to go back tothem (by phone) and be more forceful but just want to have my facts straight before I do so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Janet
xx

C_Mababejive

Janet...the car rental and insurance market is a whole different kettle of fish.

It is actually legal in some states to rent out a car with no insurance or very basic insurance.

They then sell various bolt on packages for extra insurances,many of which have very obscure names and which are difficult to understand.

Fly drive packages are notorious for it. They say car included but in the small print,they then talk insurance. They are not misleading,they are just telling you that it isnt like the UK!

When i have travelled USA i always used https://www.alamo.com note the .com not co.uk. The com site is the US base and i always found that their insurance covered mostly all you needed and was largely included in the bottom line. Just run a quote through and see how it fits with you..? I have also booked and paid via the US com website. They sometimes do discount deals etc

eslick

go for a good broker like fifteen02.com or carhire3000 and you will be ok. if you use a rental company make sure that it includes all the insurances, some dont and the level of cover isnt as good as the brokers. Often there can be hidden excesses which arent clear, there have been plent of posts on here about it over the years.

"Free" cars like you mentioned are expensive, cheaper to hire one through one of the brokers.

Also using a broker you wont get the hard sell at the rental desk, one year the manager told me that they wouldnt bother as the deal we had got was so good. If something goes wrong the broker can get you help, but car rentals co couldnt careless and often dont even respond to emails.

steveo3002

id suggest you dont take the free car , look up your own , i use netflights and you will find a meduim /large car all inc for that sort of money

wakeywarrior

I go to Florida at least once a year so have hired there over 20 times.

The included car hire deals are really a con as you often pay more for the insurance than it would cost you to hire the car independently.

I normally use Floridacarhire.net and have never had any problems and found them to be cheapest price. If you get a car with a big engine, it is often worthwhile paying the gold rate as the first tank of fuel is also included.

With a reputable broker such as this you do not need to buy a single top up insurance or extra at all- what you are quoted is all you pay.

merlinormartin

Hi Scot

Sadly "free car hire" with tour operators never means "free" .... personally i would forget about the "free" car and arrange your own car. You want to book through a online agent that includes all the insurance/extras .. i've visited the states several times in the last year or so and always tend to use netflights.com or carhire3000 ... to give you a rought idea of cost back in Jan i booked 7 days florida carhire with carhire3000 total cost = £120.60 (mid-size)

Enjoy your trip!

ferf1223

scotbean wrote: »

"The insurance included with the free car hire is a basic 3rd Party liability cover. This is recommended to be upgraded. Dollar do not allow 3rd party company insurances to be used for their cars. "

However I feel this cannot be right - surely we can arrange insurance here if we want and as long as we are covered they can't refuse it? Also I'm not sure what they mean by 'basic 3rd party cover' - I feel they are being deliberatley evasive and I asked some pretty specific questions which have not been answered!

Car hire in the US is in general different because most personal US car insurance policies cover the driver when they are driving a rental car. If you look at Dollar's US site, the quotes will not include any insurance waivers and I have many times rented from Dollar and declined any additional coverage because either I was covered on my personal insurance (when I lived in the US) or because I still have a US credit card which includes primary rental car insurance (when I've lived in the UK). My understanding in the case of the latter is that Dollar may not have accepted the coverage from the credit card, so there would be a chance that I would have to pay Dollar and claim back from the insurance from my CC.

I have never rented in Florida, but I have rented in other states and have never been asked to provide documentation of any insurance I may have when I've declined Dollar's additional coverage.

That said, a few years ago I started renting from CH3000 as recommended by the fine folks on the Vegas thread - as the rates through them, with full coverage, were not much different than renting direct with Dollar with no coverage (other than my CC) and it just wasn't worth the potential bother if something went wrong - better to just pay a little more and know it was sorted rather than rely on the CC insurance and hope for the best.