CDW Confusion

Mijora

Hi,

I've hired a car through a broker for a week's holiday in the UK later this year and am now looking at excess insurance. Usually i'd just go ahead buy the insurance and that'd be it but this time i've noticed Europcar (who are providing the rental) state on my booking details under Insurance coverage:

This does not include CDW (Collision Damage Waiver Insurance) which is a legal requirement when renting a car.

I'm confused as to whether I need to buy Excess Insurance with CDW (usually only included in annual policies) or whether the 'usual' daily rate excess insurance will protect me in the event of a collision. Can anyone please explain?

Thanks!

arcon5

Isn't the CDW insurance basically excess insurance?
I've never know it to be a legal requirement! In fact whenever i've rented vehicles I buy it elsewhere to save money and never been asked to see proof or questioned about it beyond 'do you want blah blah insurance?'

Mijora

Thankyou arcon5, I think you've nicely highlighted a key area of my confusion, is CDW the same as excess cover and if not, what is excluded from the excess cover that is provided by CDW?

InsideInsurance

Depends on how exact you want to be.

Excess insurance, by the strictest sense, would only cover you for your excess. There are certain elements, eg windscreen, that is not covered by the hire car company insurance and so "no excess" payable and thus strictly speaking you being charged £500 for a new windscreen a pure excess insurance policy wouldnt cover this.

CDW traditionally does cover these other types of damage, these days however some companies offer varying levels of CDW from the full fat product that is the traditional version but some lighter weight ones that only reduce excess rather than remove them etc.

In practice the third party Hire Car Excess Cover typically does also include these other classes of damage that the hire insurance normally excludes despite some of their names

mgfvvc

If you aren't sure book through someone that includes CDW. I had a booking with Thrifty and the email seemed to exclude CDW. I cancelled the booking and booked through rentalcars.com. I still got the car from Thrifty, but with CDW included.

AdrianC

This does not include CDW (Collision Damage Waiver Insurance) which is a legal requirement when renting a car.

Am I the only one cynical enough to think that's deliberately poor wording?

This does not include CDW (Collision Damage Waiver Insurance). CDW is a legal requirement when renting a car.

or

As legally required, this does not include CDW (Collision Damage Waiver Insurance)

Both perfectly valid interpretations of the quoted wording, but with a very big difference in meaning...

InsideInsurance

It depends if the OP is quoting it verbatim or paraphrasing. The later can be coloured by their interpretation of what was said.

Mijora

I can confirm it was a verbatim quote and seems to state quite clearly that "CDW is a legal requirement when renting a car" whichever way I look at it.