Car Hire "Insurances"

opinions4u

I'm not a regular hirer of cars.

The two occasions I've done it i seem to have ended up paying for a raft of insurances which effectively doubled the price. I'm usually fairly savvy, but I've no idea what I've bought on these occasions.

I've booked and paid for a hire car for a week out of Milan airport via Avis. I've paid £14 for CDW insurance with a third party.

What other insurances / fees are they likely to throw at me?

In your opinion should I take them or not? What are the risks if not?

pompeyrich

opinions4u wrote: »

I'm not a regular hirer of cars.

The two occasions I've done it i seem to have ended up paying for a raft of insurances which effectively doubled the price. I'm usually fairly savvy, but I've no idea what I've bought on these occasions.

I've booked and paid for a hire car for a week out of Milan airport via Avis. I've paid £14 for CDW insurance with a third party.

What other insurances / fees are they likely to throw at me?

In your opinion should I take them or not? What are the risks if not?

You need to read your agreement carefully to see what is and isn't included.

In my experience the "usual" extras are for CDW excess waiver, tyres, glass, underside of vehicle and loss of car keys and personal accident cover.

I suspect the £14 you have paid will cover the CDW excess and probably the tyres etc. check your policy wording to be sure, also read the requirements, police reports of damage etc. to help your claim when you get back if you suffer any damage.

Avis will require you to leave a deposit, normally on a credit card, to cover the excess, if there is any damage, they will charge your card and you claim it back from the 3rd party insurerer.

On arrival take your time and double check which insurance you are accepting or declining, usually by initialing a yes or no box and don't be rushed into accepting any you don't feel you need.

PA cover is usually but not always already included in a decent travel insurance policy and can probably be declined.

zagfles

In Europe the main one is the CDW excess. CDW is usually included with car hires, but usually with a massive excess of something like £500-£1000 and/or may not cover tyres, glass, underside etc. They do this in order to try to flog their rip-off "Super CDW" or excess waiver when you pick the car up, they may want something like £200.

Much cheaper to use a third-party excess insurance such as insurance4carhire or others which have been recommended here. They'll still need to reserve the excess amount on your CC. Don't believe the desk if they tell you the third party insurance doesn't cover you.

antenna

If your car hire company refuses to accept your third party bought cdw what would you do?.......they are holding all the cards.....and if you dont buy theirs they will refuse to hire you the car,simples.

zagfles

antenna wrote: »

If your car hire company refuses to accept your third party bought cdw what would you do?.......they are holding all the cards.....and if you dont buy theirs they will refuse to hire you the car,simples.

They don't have to "accept" your third party insurance, they just reserve the excess the on your card and if you have an incident they'd charge you, and you claim off your excess insurance.

The third party excess insurance insures you, not the car hire company. They don't even need to know you have it - you just refuse their rip-off excess insurance as you are already insured. Excess insurance is never compulsory (though you often get the hard sell on it - the car hire companies make a lot of money out of it).

The third party car hire insurers generally get good reviews - unlike nearly all other insurances. Claims tend to be processed in time to pay off the credit card.

ETA: this Telegraph article says basically the same thing http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/columnists/2015529/Savvy-traveller-Dont-waive-goodbye-to-your-money.html
Though I think you'd be lucky if the car hire company only wanted £50pw, these days I think they want about £100pw!!

gaffercakes

I've also paid for (overpriced, presumably) excess-waiver in the past (but only for 3 days rental), but am having an attack of too-good-to-be-true re some of the third-party excess-reimbursement insurance quotes I've been given

The one week + two days rental I'm currently sorting will only cost me £10/day (£90 in total) for the car + usual / with-excess insurance, but they want another £140 for the uber-insurance = £230 total

Holiday Autos will charge me about £50 for their uber-insurance for the same booking / provider, but I won't get the discounted daily rate from the provider (= £140), so the total price will be £190

Questor's excess-reimbursement insurance for that booking will cost me £22.50 = £112.50 total price (!)

I keep thinking that there has to be a catch, or that the hire car provider will use my taking their discounted rate + refusal of their uber-insurance to forensically examine the car on return and come up with some claim which the Questor insurance won't cover = lots of hassle (enough to make a £100+ saving not worth it)

Is there really any reason why I shouldn't take the £90 + £22.50 bargain?

opinions4u

So basically:

Hire the car.

Get decent CDW cover on a freestanding basis.

Decline all other insurance as:

1) My holiday insurance should have personal accident cover in it (will check).
2) The car hire firm is responsible for breakdown cover anyway.
3) My home insurance policy has a personal liability section (will check).

Anything else?

benjus

antenna wrote: »

If your car hire company refuses to accept your third party bought cdw what would you do?.......they are holding all the cards.....and if you dont buy theirs they will refuse to hire you the car,simples.

On what basis would they do this? You're not providing 3rd party car insurance - the car hire firm is still insuring the car to at least the minimum level required by local law. Except perhaps for long-term car hire, it's generally the case in Western Europe that car hire prices include basic insurance cover.

The 3rd party insurance product is for the excess on the basic insurance cover. There is no need to mention the 3rd party insurance at all when you pick up the car - just tell them you don't want the Super-CDW and you're happy to take the risk of having to pay the excess on the basic insurance.

zagfles

gaffercakes wrote: »

I've also paid for (overpriced, presumably) excess-waiver in the past (but only for 3 days rental), but am having an attack of too-good-to-be-true re some of the third-party excess-reimbursement insurance quotes I've been given

The one week + two days rental I'm currently sorting will only cost me £10/day (£90 in total) for the car + usual / with-excess insurance, but they want another £140 for the uber-insurance = £230 total

Holiday Autos will charge me about £50 for their uber-insurance for the same booking / provider, but I won't get the discounted daily rate from the provider (= £140), so the total price will be £190

Questor's excess-reimbursement insurance for that booking will cost me £22.50 = £112.50 total price (!)

I keep thinking that there has to be a catch, or that the hire car provider will use my taking their discounted rate + refusal of their uber-insurance to forensically examine the car on return and come up with some claim which the Questor insurance won't cover = lots of hassle (enough to make a £100+ saving not worth it)

Is there really any reason why I shouldn't take the £90 + £22.50 bargain?

Are you sure you still get the discounted rate? How come Holiday Autos charge you a higher rate for the car hire if you take their insurance but not if you don't? Doesn't really make sense.

zagfles

opinions4u wrote: »

So basically:

Hire the car.

Get decent CDW cover on a freestanding basis.

No, you still need CDW from the provider, but this is almost always included (unless you go for a business rental or via some car hire clubs/discount schemes).

It's the CDW excess or "Super CDW" which you should look at buying separately.

Decline all other insurance as:

1) My holiday insurance should have personal accident cover in it (will check).

Think this is just "£5000 for an eye, £10000 for a leg" type cover, probably not something you really "need" anyway. But travel insurance usually has this anyway. It's not medical cover which is separate, that should definitely be in travel insurance.

2) The car hire firm is responsible for breakdown cover anyway.
3) My home insurance policy has a personal liability section (will check).

Your home insurance won't cover for liability while driving, but the car hire company will include this (I think they have to in the EU).

Anything else?

Another good article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jun/12/excess-car-hire-insurance

pompeyrich

opinions4u wrote: »

So basically:

Hire the car.

Get decent CDW cover on a freestanding basis.

Decline all other insurance as:

1) My holiday insurance should have personal accident cover in it (will check).
2) The car hire firm is responsible for breakdown cover anyway.
3) My home insurance policy has a personal liability section (will check).

Anything else?

That's about it, you need to understand that if/when you decline the CDW excess cover at the rental desk, they WILL require you to leave a credit card based deposit equal to the excess amount. They don't actually charge the card but reserve the amount, this will reduce the amount available to use by that amount.

If you have an incident, they will charge your card and you will have to claim the amount back from your insurance provider when you get home. So read their small print, especially relating to any police reports etc

I have used Questor and Insurance4carhire in the past but luckily, never had to claim, so not able to comment on that side of things..