Thrifty and Car Hire Excess / CDW Insurance

jumpedtheshark

I am renting a car tomorrow in my home town. I might also rent one later in the year, and definitely overseas next year in Australia, so I've been trying to buy car hire excess insurance for the first time. I'm after an annual policy that would protect me from the big companies' standard terms.

I've phoned Thrifty to find out what's included as there's no reference to any insurance on the e-mail confirmation/receipt. They said there's a £500 excess on the vehicle which, if I want to reduce to £0, I can take out their CDW option! :think:

My understanding was that Excess and CDW were different things. I asked the Thrifty rep. this over the phone, and was told that it depends on your choice of terminology! So, what should I buy?

Insurance4carhire have an annual policy for £65.99, which would seem the same as the competition after cashback through TopCashBack. From a forum search, quite a number of people seem to have used them, which is reassuring. However, their policy only seems to talk about excess and doesn't specifically refer to home towns (though doesn't seem to exclude them).

ICarHireInsurance have an annual policy for £89.99, which specifically includes excess and CDW cover. But do I really need that?

Do I need both excess and CDW coverage for Thrifty or for most companies? Or is excess coverage enough?

Thanks in advance for cutting through the confusion!

zagfles

You almost always get CDW with car hire, except perhaps corporate hires. I think the Thrifty rep has got confused, it's probably "Super CDW" they're on about, which covers the excess. They say there's a £500 excess without, well without CDW there is no cover for the car at all so the "excess" is the full value!

The usual rip-off car hire practice is to include CDW but with a large excess, and not mention this till the punter picks up the car at which point they say they'll need to reserve (or even charge) the excess (of maybe £500-1000) to the credit card if SCDW is not taken (at a silly price - perhaps £200).

So get an annual policy from one of the ones you've mentioned. insurance4carhire did used to have a clause not covering car hires within about 150 miles (IIRC) of home, they may have dropped it now. Check the T&Cs carefully or email them for confirmation. I've used them a few times, they seem to have a good reputation (though I've never had to claim).