Confused by US hire car insurance

Sandy7

I am looking to hire a car in California with Alamo using the Economy Car Hire website and wanted to find out if it is worth buying their top up insurance? Or would it be better to buy a separate car hire insurance policy?

Many thanks for any advice

NiftyDigits

Sandy7 wrote: »

I am looking to hire a car in California with Alamo using the Economy Car Hire website and wanted to find out if it is worth buying their top up insurance? Or would it be better to buy a separate car hire insurance policy?

Many thanks for any advice

Unless you buy Alamo's top up insurance, you are buying a standalone policy anyway. It's just a matter of cost. Alamo will still take a deposit, since the Economy Car policy has nothing to do with them. You'll claim for reimbursement from their policy in the case of an incident.

GeekyGirl

ECH will offer you Excess Reimbursement Insurance and also Top Up Insurance.

ERI covers theft and damage to the vehicle and Top Up will cover parts of the vehicle that ERI will exclude, such as wheels, glass parts, mirrors, undercarriage, and the roof. If a claim has to be made, Alamo will use the security deposit to cover this and then you claim back from the policy with ECH when you return.

Local insurance may be offered to you but you can decline if you are already covered.

hollie.weimeraner

From Martins travel tips:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/travel-tips

Item 35

Beware car hire firms' pricey excess insurance

If you're hiring a car, hopefully the closest you'll come to crashing is post-holiday ice-cream withdrawal. But if the worst happens, bear in mind that while there's some cover for hire car damage, there's usually a big problem:

Check the 'excess' – the amount which you'll pay towards any claim. If it's high (£500-ish), any scratches or minor damage will be expensive.

To get round this, hire firms try to flog costly excess insurance at pick-up. This is usually a costly extra at about £20+ a day, especially with cheap hire companies, as often their profits come from the insurance.

Yet it's possible to grab cheap excess insurance for less than £2 a day via comparison site Money Maxim*. See full Cheapest Excess Insurance info.