Car Hire Excess Insurance with Essential Travel Ltd. Help!

carefulcath

Hi ,As my car was in an accident last week, the repairers Nationwide Crash Repair Centre gave me a courtesy car. Instead of taking out their CDW I took out a policy with Essential travel which is underwritten by White-horse insurance in Ireland. Overnight on Tuesday someone scratched the car causing £608 of damage. I have sent in a claim to the insurers and they told me to fill in the claim form and send police details etc plus the credit card statement showing that I have paid for the damage. Obviously it will be about 6 weeks before it appears on my CC statement and I am worried that they will then turn round and say I am not covered for some reason. I emailed and asked her to say whether I am definitely covered but she has not replied. Has anyone else had to make a claim from this company and if so what is your experience and or advice?

MasterChief_3

Hello...

I read your post and all I can say is you will be in for a nasty surprise. GENERAL EXCLUSION No. 20 in Essential Travel's policy document expresses the following...

20.Car rentals within 150 kilometres of your main residence in your home country.

What this means in respect of your policy is that you are not covered for rentals that are collected "in-country" or "local" within 150km from your main residence. Given you have taken out a courtesy car while your vehicle is in the shop, I presume you are only a few miles away from your residence. Also, you might want to double check if courtesy cars are allowed as most policies exclude these types of rental agreements.

Essential Travel, questor, insurance4carhire, worldwide; every single provider on the internet which is selling this car hire excess insurance excludes local rentals (or In-Country cover) in their policies.

There is only one provider out there that includes rentals without any distance restrictions from the home and that is icarhireinsurance.com I have a policy with them and this is why your note caught my eyes. I have the annual policy for £39.99 and it clearly says local rentals are allowed. Not only is the product more comprehensive, they are competitively priced and they don't charge extra for additional drivers.

Anyhow, I hope my advice has helped you in case you never hear back from Whitehorse Insurance...make sure you let them know they should make their product exclusions more visible in their customer journey.